Of Birds and Beasts
by SapSorrow
Summary: A collection of Sansa/Sandor ficlets of all different genres, some explicit, some canon, some divergence from canon, some total au, angst, fluff and all sorts! Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**1.**

The swallow hopped back and forth along the wall; a tiny little thing, no bigger than her hand and from up here no bigger than a butterfly. There it went again. It would hop along the stone a little and look around itself as though checking – she wondered what it was it was looking for. Then it would peck down at the wall by its feet, look up again as though disappointed every time and repeat the process coming back up the other way.

There were fewer birds out every day now, she was noticing. She had heard once that they flew to other lands for the winter, but did not remember a winter in her lifetime. Besides, there had never been swallows in Winterfell. Maybe it was true then; maybe winter was coming. She had not cared, not until now, watching the swallow that had stayed behind. It had amused her at first, almost; but now, charting the futile repetition of its movements, it was starting to make her sad.

_Fly away, little bird, _she thought fiercely, willing it to half in the expectation that by doing so she could have some effect. _Fly away while you still can!_

She had read stories about girls – princesses, they were always princesses – who could sing to birds and call them over to the window where they waited like she waited today, and every day, never certain what they waited for. She was not certain either, but she was sure she would know it when it arrived. If she were only a girl in one of those stories she could reach out a hand and the swallow would fly up and alight on her fingertip. It would sing to her and she would feed it and keep it alive and safe. It could be her friend, the only one she had here. _If _she were a girl in one of those stories, _if, if, if. _

The thought turned sour, turned into the thought she was having more and more these days-that the stories had betrayed her, faithless lovers all. She did not want to keep watching the bird, it was making her sad. But then, in light of her uselessness, her inability to help, it seemed rude and weak to look away.

She did not look away.

She had watched so long and so hard that she felt she had come to know what it really meant to watch _hard. _Until you were a stone, until you could hardly move for it. She physically jumped when a noise from below made the bird take flight in alarm. She heard the tiny ruffle of wings as it scurried into the air current and disappeared into the wind.

It was a movement that had startled it. The holdfast was guarded at all times – as though there was anything she could do – and now she peered down to see who had frightened away her bird.

She started back, moving right away from the window, hand leaping to curl against her chest in what she knew was an affectation but it came naturally as though she would have done it anyway; it was The Hound – and he was looking up at her just as she looked down at him. Her breath caught in her throat, fluttering and beating there, like she could taste her own heart. It was silly. She was used to that face now, why should it startle her so? It was not the kind of familiarity to haunt dreams and bring terror; indeed his appearance in her dreams had left her flustered and confused, convincing herself she remembered nothing in the morning.

She leaned back against the wall inside the tower. Why did she do that? Behave and feel like she was being hunted. He could not see her now- logically she knew that; so why did she feel that she knew he was still looking her way? And after all, she had been looking his way too. Her cheeks felt hot; he puzzled her, that one. She did not suppose she would ever be able to imagine what went on in a head like that, what someone like that could be thinking.

He frowned, looking up at her window long after she had disappeared, wondering who taught her to colour up so prettily, clutch her breast in that maidenly manner. He wondered if she even knew she was doing it and if so for whose benefit? _Startled the little thing, _he thought, almost smirking –_ two birds, one stone. _

No she would never understand him, never know what went on inside another's head, never imagine they could have a single thought in common- she probably did not even know her own mind, let alone anyone else's.

_Fly away, little bird, _he thought fiercely, as he turned away from her window. _Fly away while you still can!_

_x_

**This is my first little play with this 'ship so please be kind! I have many other plans and since all the sections will have completely different genres I'll warn any that need it individually. Also I've only watched up to the end of series 2 so far so unless otherwise stated assume these are set mid series 2 'k? :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Season two again, set just before the encounter on the steps. Some semi – graphic content and vaguely Sandor/ OC though I'm not sure it really counts. Much angst, very confuse, so in denial. **

**2.**

It had been a mistake. The girl was all wrong. Fuck it; this whole damn thing was wrong, fucked up from start to finish.

She wasn't one of Chataya's. Hell, this was not any one of the better brothels. It had seemed to him to be foolish to run the risk of that rat Littlefinger finding out – hell, he probably would anyway, and damn it all, what _was _there to find out? Even a dog was entitled to a whore in King's Landing; it was the one commodity no threat from the outside would be able to keep out.

But she had seemed pretty to begin with, slight and young, pale and wide eyed with that long red hair that was so close but not quite and the fluttering little white hands – even if the fluttering _was _an affectation, and of course it was, just like the innocence she was assuming as her sales pitch – it was close enough to what he wanted that it would do through a drunken haze. It was the furtive guilt that made him feel like shit, not the act itself. But Baelish was just the kind of sharp eyed git to put two and two together and jump straight to the awkward conclusion he was himself fighting so hard and so unsuccessfully to avoid. He could just see the man whispering a word in the King's ear – he'd have to spell it out to the idiot – painting in bold the comparison between his supposedly faithful Hound's pursuits and his own intended. He could just picture the look on the bastard's face as the penny dropped.

Actually, _that _was enough to make him carry on.

So here he was, fucking into this girl like it would somehow get the other out of his head, digging fingers into her thighs to bruise – and that was wrong too, if she had been the right one he would have hurt himself right back for any mark he left upon her. This one was coarser, and she smelled of cheap perfume where his little bird smelled like clouds and faintly meadowsweet.

_His _– he growled, and it came out loud – he should not have thought that. He was in this shit deeper than he realised. He closed his eyes, trying to squeeze her out, fuck her out. But if it hadn't been working all these weeks, why the hell would it now? The girl made too much noise, utterly unbelievable, nothing that he wanted to hear. As if this did anything for her; bad enough that even the whores took one look at him and charged twice.

"Stop that," he growled and slapped her. She shut up. It was a relief. He closed his eyes and pounded on into her. He did not want to think about Sansa. He could not keep her out. He did not want to think about anyone else.

A flail of the girl's arm made him grab her by the wrist and pin her hands back over her head, rather than have her do anything out of character that would ruin the illusion. Her wrists felt so little, so easily swamped in his rough hands; he could feel the little bones, the fluttering pulse- and _ fuck, _that did it; he came into her with a long growl and a sneer and when the start of a name slipped out in the growl he turned it quickly into a hiss.

He headed back to his kennel, tail between his legs. It had not helped. It had expelled nothing, beyond the most basic urge of the moment. He hated her for it, hated himself for hating her, it was not her fault, nothing could ever be her fault and so, when she all but ran into him coming back from the Godswood, when she gave him those big startled eyes, when she gasped, so similar to the noises she made in his head, he could not help but hate her more than ever. How could he keep going if he did anything but demonstrate that he hated her, at the same time angry and drunk enough to think – _I could do it. I could have her right here and anyone else be damned, her as well, let us all be damned. _The thought flicked away from him like a hopping bug; and quick on its tails came an urgent need to touch her, just stroke her sweet face with all the gentleness that roared around his heart, battered it down - a gentleness that swerved simply into seeing her safely back into her cage.

And that was worst of all, he thought afterwards, closeted away and safely barricaded off from that sweetness he called stupidity out loud, that strange tenderness. It was bad enough just wanting her and worse than bad, he sure as hell did not need to love her.

_x_


	3. Chapter 3

**Valentine's special! Total fluff – just assume they celebrate valentine's day in Westeros….which they probably don't so AU I guess. :-)**

**3.**

"Oh it's so lovely!" she squealed, looking down on the banquet hall from the balcony above. The queen had had it decked out for the evening in a variety of beautiful shades, flowers and banners streaming all around. For a moment, bathing in the pink and red prettiness of it all she almost felt like a child again. She would have to make sure and dress to match, she thought – she had that pretty pink silk somewhere with the white lace, never worn because she was not sure that it went with her hair, but maybe tonight ….

"Wandering, were we, little bird?" came a rough voice behind her and she turned quickly, neck prickling, heat creeping up her cheeks as though she had been caught thinking something she should not.

"I just wanted to see – " she stammered, then remembered herself – "I _have _the freedom of the castle" she added, defiantly, though there was really nothing to be defiant about.

"The freedom – " he echoed, shaking his head, the sentence trailing off. She wondered what he meant by it, he sounded mean; but he always sounded mean.

"What's the occasion?" he asked, gruffly, jerking his head where she was looking, in the hall below.

"Oh you must know, surely –"

"Must I." It was more mockery than a question, but she took it as a question nonetheless.

"But today is St. Valentine's day –" she ignored the way he looked at her – it had always been one of her favourite holiday and even he could not curb her enthusiasm – "It's a celebration of love! Knights give tokens – and gifts to their ladies in signs of affection – and often in secret –"

"Only_ knights_ and_ ladies?_" he sneered; he always managed to make those words sound somehow offensive – "It's just for them then, is it?"

"Well –" she thought about it – he wanted to laugh at her, the way she cocked her head a little to the side as she thought, like a real little bird – "No – I suppose all folk –"

"And what about a dog?" he interrupted. Getting tired of his interruptions she stuck her chin out stubbornly;

"Even a dog may tell a lady he loves her on a day like today. Good day my lord."

She walked away primly, quickly, before he even had a chance to call her out on the _my lord._

-x-

The feast _was _charming, rendered almost magical in Sansa's eyes by the bonus of it being only ladies and not having to endure the company of Joffrey and all of his less than true knights. Her eyes were shining from the lights of the candles, illuminated in the rose coloured glass, and she got back to her room feeling happier than she remembered being in a long time.

When she got to her bed she blinked down in amazement, wondering just for a moment if fairies had been. It was like a dream; her bed was covered with flowers, like an extra coverlet, bluebells, snowdrops, buttercups and daisies; all the sweet flowers of the hedgerow, so many of them her favourites, clearly gathered just for her by some gentle, loving hand. She gathered some up, inhaled deeply, the smell of air and the wonderful world beyond King's Landing was a greater gift to her than the giver could possibly have known.

She pressed fingers to her lips but a giggle escaped her even as tears pricked in her eyes. It was _too _lovely. Her heart soared and shivered; she imagined a beautiful knight, someone like Ser Loras, thinking of her as he laid out the flowers. She wondered if he had left any clue. It was her first real valentine! There! She saw, beneath the crystal bowl of little lemon cakes, cut like perfect hearts and left on her dresser – and oh! He must care so much to know all of her favourites like this when she had never said!

There _was _a note. A small piece of card. She sat down on the bed, would not let herself look at it straight away, held it in trembling fingers and peeped at it. Oh.

_Even a dog may tell a Lady he loves her._

Nothing more. It silenced her giggling, childish heart, replaced with something deeper, dark and delightful. She refused to permit herself to understand it.

-x-

Nevertheless, she was still smiling the next morning when he came to escort her to the Great Hall. She had a bluebell pinned to her dress and another in her hair. She could not find the courage to speak until they were almost there and he had looked at her so strangely. Still, she touched him timidly on the arm –

"I wanted to thank you Ser for –" she began, but did not know how to end it. He seemed to flinch almost, when she touched him, and he was looking at her with such an utter lack of comprehension that she began to question herself. Maybe it was a mistake; maybe someone had overhear her yesterday and liked the phrase.

"It – doesn't matter" she finished quickly, but she was still smiling to herself as she turned away and never saw his twisted lips twitch almost in a smile of their own as he watched her go.

_x_


	4. Chapter 4

**This one is really just random first time pwp. Enjoy. :-)**

**4.**

This time when he asked her to sing for him she knew he did not mean it literally. He was buried to the hilt inside her, balls-deep in her sweet cunt, growling and moaning as he thrust into her.

For weeks he had toyed with her, toyed with himself; pushing her into walls, backing her into corners, growling threats that sounded to her more and more like promises, though she only half understood most of what he said he wanted to do to her.

The first time had not been the rape either of them anticipated. Even when he had come barging into her room with that look that let her know exactly what was happening here, her mind had panicked whilst the rest of her had swirled in giddy confusion, not knowing quite what it was she was feeling. Then when he had kissed her and she had meant with all the will in the world to fight it or at the very least to squirm away in horror, she had done nothing of the kind. Her stupid, treacherous body had betrayed something she did not know she felt able to betray, by leaning in instead of away and almost but not quite kissing back.

When he felt her yield, he had not been able to stop; still he had pushed her onto the bed gently, made sure not to rip her clothes when he took them off her and in spite of his painful, desperate need, he had looked down at her nakedness almost in disbelief, with such golden, almost tearful warmth mingling with the lust in his eyes that it had been her who reached for him before he even dared touch her. She had stroked the thick hardness between his legs as he bent over her and he had almost whined at the curious timidity of her touch, taking her wrist and twisting it firmly, gently down on the pillow; whispering gruffly –

"Stop little bird, before I spill in your pretty hand and never make it to your cunt."

Her eyes had widened when he touched her there, and it would have been hard to tell which of them was more surprised by how wet she was beneath his fingers. He looked at her as though he were in pain, and he could hardly bear the wide eyed trust with which she gazed back. He cursed beneath his breath, unable to believe any girl could be this wet for _him, _let alone her, so pretty and perfect.

"I'm sorry –" he whispered, sliding up against her, bathing in her skin, in too great a hurry to be as gentle as he wanted to be – "I don't want to hurt you –"

She shook her head, knowing that if it was going to hurt she would rather it were quick;

"It's alright –" she whispered, though she was afraid, whatever the other feeling was she felt it more than the fear – "It's supposed to hurt." She had been told that, she remembered. She had also been told that it would be him who wanted it so much that it would make it alright. She wondered if she was wrong for thinking that _she_ was the one wanting it enough to make it alright. He looked at her a moment and then could not anymore, he thrust into her slow and hard. She bit her lip hard, too breathless to cry out, and it _did _hurt, no lie, but at the same time he looked at her like he was crying and quickly closed his eyes so she would not see. Still, she reached a hand to his face and felt it wet. He kissed her palm and groaned, the groan turning into a litany of words that stroked the pain like his fingers did and made it better; _gods, so good, so tight, sweet little bird, sweet fuck, dear gods – _he came into her within minutes; at least she was sure that was what that hot rush and the shuddering groan entailed, and she smiled even though it had ended just as it started to feel good.

He had been so awkward as he moved away that she felt bad for him. He struggled to meet her eye as though afraid he had done something wrong. When she reached her hand to his face again he jerked his head away and muttered,

"Don't" – even though he had let her before. She wondered if anyone had ever touched that scarred skin willingly in his life. She suddenly wanted to kiss him, to tell him he was beautiful but she imagined his barking laugh of derision at such a statement and kept quiet, or nearly quiet –

"Please – I just –" she didn't know what. He knew she didn't know what and seemed to take relief in getting angry at her for her useless chirping; still even when he grabbed her head, twisting his fingers in her hair he did not hurt her; half dressed again, he had taken a dagger from his belt and pressed it to her throat.

"You just _what, _little bird? You thought it would be different? Well get used to it, because I'll be here again, tomorrow night and every night after and if you tell anyone –"

Her heart sang, she wanted to laugh at him, knowing what he was going to say, his fingers untangled in her hair and stoked gently through it, gently caressing her cheek as he said it, almost affectionately –

"I'll kill you". He kissed her again, so softly this time, but even without such a kiss she had no need to hear him say he did not mean it. Then he was gone as abruptly as he appeared. She smiled to herself in the guttering candlelight; she _had _thought it would be different – she had thought it would be ever so much worse. She had _not _thought it could feel good like that, never imagined she would be needy for more, sat here dreaming about the next time it could happen, knowing there was so much more to discover. She wondered if he had meant the threat of his returning as the promise she had heard it as.

-x-

He did return, every night after, sometimes taking her quickly in the mornings when he came to escort her down to the hall. She would watch the days' events, tolerate Joffrey's idiocy and cruelty with a smile flickering round her heart in the knowledge that his dog's seed still lingered between her legs. It made her heady to think of it, dreamy beyond what the stories could describe and curiously aware that she got closer and closer every day to a wonderful new discovery.

And now, she could feel it creeping up on her, with his cock buried inside her and his fingers, hard and calloused, yet stroking more gently than anything she could have imagined and it was _killing _her and he growled gently in her ear –

"Sing for me, little bird," and she understood for the first time how he really meant it, how he had _always _meant it even if he had not always been certain of it himself and she gasped and his finger flicked gently one last cataclysmic time across her clit before pressing down hard when he heard her start to scream, working her, drawing those cries out of her – and they were such _little _screams, fluttering cries as she took flight and she understood, understood all the mysterious clichés about death and flying and she took wing with it, reeling off into the sky and he did not look at her, just listened and came into her in reverential silence with that glorious song ringing in his ears.

And when he opened his eyes again, she had already started to come back down to earth; he could not fathom seeing the way she looked at him, with a wonder in her eyes he had surely reserved for her. He fell onto her gently, rolling over, taking her in his arms and she would not let him look away this time, pressing her face into his neck and then shockingly feeling her warm soft lips against that side of his face that had never felt anyone's lips, let alone anything so sweet. He wanted to cry and she must have known it because she just kissed him again and whispered –

"Don't," like he had done to her, only sweeter. So he didn't; just stayed with her all that night, ready to sleep at the foot of her bed if she would ask but she did not.

_x_

**I have this cute idea now that every time he starts a sentence with "If you ever tell anyone " she's always just thinking "You'll kill me, yeah yeah, I know the drill" and it's become like an affectionate thing between them now. :-)**

**By the way, if anyone has any requests for one shots I could put in here, I'm listening. **

**:-)**


	5. Chapter 5

**I was gonna do a nice fluffy chapter next, but …uh… this happened, is mostly graphic angst with graphic – uh – sex I guess? – and a little bit of heartbreak. I hate myself. And so -**

**Trigger warning for graphic imagined rape.**

**5.**

He thinks about raping her; thinks about it with his cock in his fist, night after night, wanting and hurting, wondering where the hell this is going to end.

He could do it, he thinks every time. It would be so easy; she could not put up any kind of fight that would stop him and her little struggles would just make him slam into her harder, hold her down more fiercely, trap her tiny body with his huge one and feel her flutter wildly against him as he ravaged her, taking his pleasure over and over again.

And that pleasure – god yes the pleasure of it would be so intense, her sweet little cunt the healing balm for his aching cock. How could he ever show her mercy when she has made him suffer this for so long?

In his mind he has already done it; so often and so completely that sometimes when he passes her he feels awkward in the memory of a thing that never happened. _If you knew what I was thinking, Little Bird, _he thinks – _if you knew what we did just the other night, if you knew the noises you made, how you sang for me then! _

He has done it so vividly that it becomes hard to look at her, remembering how he tore her dress apart to fall upon those perfect breasts, remembers her blushes and then cries as he buried his face in their softness, licked and kissed and bit at the hard sweet pink nipples. He can never quite even imagine her liking it at first; she always cries and whimpers and pleads for him so sweetly to stop, to not, to please have mercy good Ser.

_I'm no Ser, _he growls for the thousandth and final time, proving it when he rapes her and damn him but if her cries do not make him harder. She cries every time, and he feels like the lowest kind of bastard just including this in the fantasy, but what girl would not? He has to make it half way believable, after all. He doesn't care; just carries on, takes what he wants from her night after night, in hallways, against the wall, over tables, in her bed, in his, wherever he should fall, fucking her and then leaving her.

Sometimes, indeed more and more frequently, he does not leave her. He carries her back to her room and takes her again. This second time it starts to change, somewhere deep inside her he feels her start to move back, hears her cries turn to moans, her sobs turn to gasps and somehow, because this can happen in a fantasy, she starts to like it, to want it and she twists and writhes not at all like she did before but because her body is arching towards him now and not pulling away and she is clawing and scratching and the wolf is in her eyes again as he has seen it in truth a few times now, and could she be like that, really? He wonders it often by night and by day he watches her eyes more than she will ever know, just to glimpse the shadow howling in the darkness, growling in the black of her eyes.

In truth, he knows she could never like it. Not with him. Indeed, with all those fantasies she's built up that will always keep the truth from her – maybe not with anyone. By night he rapes her for it, hurts her, almost breaks her in his fantasies over and over again; she is so easy to break. He could do it any time. Next time, he tell himself, next day, next opportunity, next time he sees her he will.

He never does.

When he even gets the chance to see her breasts he looks away. His heart cringes like the beaten dog it is to see her humiliated and all thought of wanting to be the one to tear her clothes off is gone. He hates himself for allowing it, hates himself for not running straight to her, wills himself to feel every blow they inflict on her, to take it in her place. But he makes himself watch; it is the least punishment he can give himself for not stopping it.

He catches her alone so often and every time the fantasies that are almost memories spring up like virulent magical weeds in the brain. He cuts them down within seconds; it's almost automatic, and in their place is just a feeling of such terrible helplessness that it could almost be what she feels ninety percent of the time. That, and a huge urge to help, to make things better in any way he can; even some kind of strange ridiculous fantasy notion of rescuing her, because he knows _her _fantasies too damn well, remembers when they were his. He remembers a boy who cannot possibly have been him, who was not so bad looking, almost an innocent and as enthralled by being a knight as she still is of enchanting one. And it seems to him he can remember how much that boy dreamt of riding a charger out of a flaming city while the mob bayed and a girl of great beauty, heartbreakingly sweet, sat up behind him, arms twisted fiercely around him as he rode her away from harm.

Seems to be he remembers that. He cannot think from who or where or when anymore.

So now he is left by night with his dreams of forcing her. Dreams that he would never, given all the chance in the world, make real. And then by day she tortures him with this half remembered dream of chivalry, even Romance.

And sometimes, just sometimes, when he is very drunk and his worlds mix up, the wrong fantasy comes by night and he thinks of sweetness and a happy ending in place of violence and he cannot grasp his cock for crying.

_Stories, _he thinks angrily – _damned stories, how do I save you, Little Bird, when they are killing me as sure as they are you?_

_x_

**So next time I WILL do something nice and fluffy as originally planned. Promise. I'm also working on a couple of things people have requested, I've started, it just didn't happen today. :-)**


	6. Chapter 6

**Um….it ain't nice and fluffy. Sorry peoples. :-( This is for ****_Direwaggle42 _****who asked for something related to Sansa seeing The Hound mourning at Lady's grave. So this is set just after Lady's death and I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. Have tissues. **

**6.**

The next day her father could not look her in the eye, though she watched him hard and hating, though her own eyes never stopped stinging. The lump in her throat was too great for her to even speak to him until the mid afternoon when she finally bit out the words –

"Where is she?"

If her father had dared to ask _who,_ she thought she might have punched him, even though it was awful and even though she did not really know how. But he did not. He told her they had sent her back to be buried in Winterfell with an escort of four men and all the while he still did not meet her eyes. She had never seen him afraid to look at someone before. If it had not been her she might have felt bad for him; but not today.

"Where did you do it?" she asked in a relentless, steely voice.

"Do you have to know?"

"I have to pray for her. Where else would I go?"

Ned had never seen such a frost around his eldest daughter, nor heard such ice on her breath.

"Outside the gatehouse," he sighed, defeated – "By the pole where she was tied."

-x-

It was growing dark when she went over there. She did not want to be mocked, did not want to meet anyone. She hated everyone today; her father and Arya whose fault it was, the King and Queen and even Joffrey – _but I can't hate him _she reminded herself – _I can't. _She had not stopped crying long enough to speak to anyone anyway. She had heard her elders talk about death so much, with fear and with reverence but all she knew, when it came to it, was that Lady was not here anymore. Someone, she was not sure who, had tried to tell her she was in a better place and though she felt terrible for it she had cried out that she did not _want_ Lady in a better place, she wanted her _here,_ with her. There were supposed to thoughts of comfort to grasp at but all she felt was sad, a dizzying, strange sensation of wrongness at how she would never play or walk with her girl again, or comfort herself with the feel of thick fur beneath her hand when she was sad.

_My heart is broken, _she thought. She had once dreamt of being old enough to have such a Romantic thought. But it wasn't Romantic or wonderful, it just hurt.

She stopped suddenly, outside the gatehouse; there was already somebody there, knelt by the pole where she had meant to pay her respects. She stood still for several moments wondering what to do, so still and so quiet that when the man turned round he almost jumped, just as she did on seeing that face come up at her out of the dark.

"Girl, what are you doing here?" The Hound growled.

"What are _you _doing here?" she echoed – "This is where – where –" she did not want to say it. But it had happened; she _had _to say it – "Lady died". Her chin wobbled but she did not look down.

"I know it," he said, gruffly, standing up "It should not have happened, girl, I'm –" he made a noise just short of _sorry. _

"Why?" She should have thanked him for his condolences like the lady she was; normally she would have, but just now her heart felt swollen in her chest and with it she knew a recklessness that loosened her normally pliant tongue – "Why would _you _care? You killed my sister's friend." She did not, if she was honest, wholly care about Arya's stupid friend. But it seemed a valid point all the same. Then again, now that she had said it she quailed a little, remembering that she was alone in the dark with a man who wold not pause to slice a child in two with an axe. _She _was just a child, might he not just as easily kill her for her rudeness?

He must have seen this all cross her face because he laughed humourlessly.

"I did," he nodded. "It's different. Humans –" he made a noise of disgust – "They bring it on themselves. Dogs, they stand by you, no matter what. And an innocent –" he waved a hand, he wanted to say something about how an innocent should not suffer for another's crime, even she could see it. But he couldn't voice the sentiment; it stank of a nobility he did not equate with himself.

"I'll go," he rasped.

"No, I –" she regretted her rudeness already, and no longer because she thought he might hurt her for it. After all, nobody else had even _tried _to tell her they were sorry, let alone expressed an opinion – "I'm sorry. I am grateful for your condolences, Ser."

"Not a Ser," he grunted – "Say your prayers, child, and I'll see you back inside."

She looked at him, frowning a little as she knelt down beside the marker by the post –

"Who put this here?"

But he was looking away, absently it seemed, pretending not to hear her. As he watched her bow her head he could not help but want to tell her. He felt a strange urge to just spill out all these stupid words that came to him. How he had loved his own dogs as a child. Well they were not quite his own dogs but sometimes he had felt that way. After his accident – or so everyone had called it, much to his disgust – he had gone more and more often to the kennels, spending time with his father's charges. _They _had not looked at him with those dreadful mingled stares of sympathy and horror. They had treated him no different from before and he could not have said that of any human. He remembered one day overhearing his father ask after him, not knowing he could hear, someone reply that he was with the dogs and his brother's hateful voice – "He's not _with _the dogs, he _is _a dog".

That was how the name had started as well. Yet another awful thing he could thank Gregor for.

But the dogs, they'd just been kinder, if anything than before. His favourite, Grumkin, with the scarred up nose and tattered ear, would lick the ruined side of his face just as well as the other, look him in both eyes and never give a shit. He had been about Sansa's age when Grumkin died; he remembered crying for days, carrying the lead in his pocket until it fell apart. He would have liked to tell her. It was stupid. He never told anyone about himself, what was it about her that made him think he suddenly could?

Now he heard her little voice whispering to the mother and tried to be stone.

"Gentle mother take care of her," the girl whispered – "She's shy, don't let her be bullied, just talk to her and you'll see, she's sweet and loving if you're gentle to her. She'd never hurt anyone, not the smallest thing. She doesn't like to be led; she'll walk on her own and be ever so good. She likes rabbit best and warm milk. Don't let her get cold, she's scared of snow and cold, it makes her sad, gentle mother take care of my Lady, she took care of me - but she's yours now."

He heard how her voice remained steady and soft, right until the end when she let go, then it wavered and when she stood up, whispering a tiny _goodbye, _he could see the tears streaking her face to pieces, even in the dark. He looked at her, afraid, utterly unsure what to do with a crying girl, but she swallowed hard and nodded –

"I'm alright," she lied, prettily – "I'm ready to go back now. Thank you."

He patted her shoulder just once and with absolute awkwardness. His hand was so large and her frame so delicate that it hurt more than he meant, but somehow, walking back, she felt that the utter loneliness, the emptiness with which she had walked out was lifted somewhat; that even with Lady gone she might still be somehow protected.

Just before they got inside she looked at him, not knowing how she dared ask or how he would know and finally got out the question that had plagued her the most –

"Was it my fault?" she blurted, beyond blaming her father and sister, everyone, this had gone round her head all day; if she had supported Joffrey, if she had supported Arya – if she had done anything differently – would Lady still be alive. He did not know any of this, could not find any answer for her except in her own eyes that told him what to say –

"Girl, how could anything be your fault?"

It sounded like sarcasm, but they both knew he did not mean it that way at all.

_x_owHo

**Well I made myself sad anyway! Thanks Direwaggle! :-)**


	7. Chapter 7

**7.**

He knew it was a dream; his brain would not allow him the relief of ignorance, even asleep. It did not mean it did not feel good, just added an undercurrent of awareness- wrongness really – just enough to keep it from being perfect. It was almost a relief. He was not sure what he would do with perfection.

It was the firelight that let him know it was a dream, not the girl rising above him, pale and red and cut with shadow all at once. It was the fact of his enjoying the warmth that felt wrong, and never her when she felt so exquisite around him, and that should have been the clue that this was not real.

And she was different. She smiled as she rode him, confident and assured and she pushed a strand of hair back where it tumbled over her face with a smile that was as much a lie as it was coy. She _knew _– this Sansa – she knew how beautiful she was. She was everything she might have been if Joffrey and all his wretchedness had never happened to her; whimsical and sweet, sure of herself almost to the point of arrogance. She seemed older too, years away from the sweet scared child who had dropped to her knees in fear at his face, burying her own in the fur of a wolf. No, this woman _was _the wolf. He hoped he did not look at her with the most pathetic adoration he was sure he was probably demonstrating. His hands moved up over her thighs to hold her round the waist and he could see, in the dream, the marks his fingers made in her skin, his every touch sullying her; she was like fallen snow and he trampled all over it regardless. But he turned the soft skin into armour beneath his fingers and she was more beautiful than ever for it.

She smiled and leant over him, fluid as a river and she kissed him with the wolf in her eyes, grinning before it pounced. What chance did a dog ever have against that? He woke himself up with his own growling.

He sat up in bed with the dream red and foggy around his head. It took a few minutes to shake it too, to remember the disappointing reality. He had thought he was long past the point of disappointment, that he was safe from that feeling of loss in the face of reality and he had been. He _had _been – until this damned mess had started.

When he looked up clearly again, he thought for a moment he had fallen back to sleep. because she had not gone from his sight. She was stood right there in his doorway. For a moment it seemed normal because it had to be a dream. He blinked. She was still there, standing like a ghost in white with a candle in her hands that – _fuck – _set its light to glowing all over her and right through her night gown. Her hair fell over one shoulder in a rumpled sheet like the candle flame had continued and caught fire. He tried not to look too hard. He found himself incapable of looking anywhere else.

"Little bird?" he mumbled – "What are you doing here?"

"I heard a noise –" she fluted, defensive and quick – "I – It sounded like someone was in pain and the door was half open –"

"So naturally you – went towards the source instead of staying at your perch like a sensible bird," he shook his head in despair. Every time she did something that made him start to think she could survive everything she was put through, she did something like this and worried him all over again; "You should take better care of yourself, girl."

She came in a little and he felt almost panicked; if she got too close how would he ever be able to let her go?

"_Did _you cry out?" she asked, persistently.

He did not know how to answer that one without lying to her;

"You should go now little ghost, and take your fucking fire with you."

She wondered, for the millionth time, why he always had to be so harsh when she was only ever trying to be nice. She wondered for the millionth time why she kept trying to be nice, he was the one person who really wouldn't care if she did not bother. But she cared. She wondered why she cared.

"I'm sorry –" she stammered, finally, forehead knotting, perplexed; she realised she had been holding the candle up to see his face, realised she was holding it quite close now, kicked herself inwardly and hard for not having realised he would hate that – "If I scared you. I didn't mean to".

If _she _scared _him! _He always _meant _to scare her. He wondered how it was that she succeeded without trying when he did not when he was. He laughed at her roughly;

"Couldn't scare me if you tried little bird. Now get out of here, I can see right through your gown."

He had not meant to say that. But he _had _to make her go. She looked down at herself, seemed to realise for the first time how little she was walking around in and he watched the blush creep prettily up her face as she fled from the room with his laughter ringing behind her.

He groaned, falling back into bed heavily. That had been close. She had no idea. She could never have any idea. Stupid little bird, stupid girl, stupid, sweet beautiful thing. There were fucking tears in his fucking eyes again.

But he thought, as he lay sleepless, what a strange little creature she was. He remembered the first time he had seen the wolf in her eyes, fierce and snarling after months of seeing her only as a cub. It had been on the wall, as he saw her stare up sightlessly upon her father's head. He wondered if she blamed him for holding it there for her to see. He had hated his hands for following orders. But he had seen her eyes close down, seen her stubborn resilience, and behind it he had seen a shadow in the night, heard a howling at the moon that chilled him on that hot day. He had seen the wolf curl and crouch and almost spring and he wondered if he had ever done anything more terrifying than come between the dire wolf and its prey. He had seen Joffrey as nothing more than prey ever since.

He was almost glad when she had become a bird again and he could protect her in safety, though he had caught that flash of yellow and teeth in her eyes many times again since then. It was a strange thought and one he would force away by day, but it occurred to him that that she was far safer around him than he would ever be around her.

_x_

**I started this chapter before I wrote the last two, so I'm sorry if I repeated myself in anything. I still would love to take requests for one shots. :-)**


	8. Chapter 8

**Happy ever after AU/ wish! Three little snippets of domestic bliss for ****_Heartstutter _****….although I have to say I wanted to write this anyway. Total fluff.**

**8.**

He watches over her until she falls asleep. She rolls onto her side and curls up so small he can almost feel the whole of her within one arm, the arm she snuggles back into as though it is a cradle. She's so _small _it tugs at his heart, so sweet he's not quite sure what to do about it, why he is still here, _how _he is still here. But here he is, for as long as she says or until circumstance demands.

He wants to fall asleep like this, curled around her, but he does not want her to turn around in the morning and have his face be the first thing she sees. He could not do that to a girl. Hell, before her he never even woke up beside one that had not been paid to be there.

So he turns away to spare her. After how sweet she has been, after everything she has allowed him to do, he could not bear it if she were to wake and start screaming.

Even so, he turns in the night without meaning to, and when he first opens his eyes in the morning she is already awake, still and serene, smiling into his face in the fresh morning light. When he blinks his way to real awakeness her little fingers flutter through his hair, pushing it back off his face still further. If he had not been half awake he would never have let it happen. He mumbles a groggy, "Huh?" as she touches his face, running her fingers over the mess of scar tissue and shiny burn with a smile that reaches all the way to her eyes and further. He saw the same look in her eyes that day at the tournament when she was dazzled by the beauty of the Knight of Flowers. Of the many things he has expected to see in her eyes when they look at him, _dazzled _was not amongst them.

He frowns beneath her persistent smiling gaze, not sure how to take it. Nobody ever looked at _him _like that before. It is unthinkable that it could be her. He would have wondered if he had been dreaming but his dreams have never been so kind.

Finally she frowns and he is almost relieved, convinced she has found something in his face to upset her. He'd back away, but there is nowhere to go to, as she reaches out a finger to touch his face with intent;

"Eyelash," she whispers, smiling playfully – "Make a wish".

His eyes brim; he fears if he is not careful he'll say something regrettably sentimental;

"No need," he grunts and when she smiles and blows at her fingers he knows he has failed.

-x-

These days he threatens to kill her almost hourly, affectionately, for anything. She rolls her eyes these days and mocks him. He never thought they could have reached this point.

"When did you stop being scared of me?" he asks her one day.

"I was never scared of you," she replies; it is not a lie. She had thought that she was for so long. She had been foolish, childishly unaware of her own heart. She knows it now. She spent so long lying every day just to stay alive she does not want to lie again, not even to herself.

"Liar," he says.

"I'm not."

"You never thought that I would hurt you?"

"I thought _everyone _would hurt me. And everyone did. Everyone except you."

"First time I saw you, you were so scared I could feel you shake."

"It wasn't you," she shakes her head – "It was Ilyn Pane. You never gave me a chance to say, you just assumed it was you, you _always _do."

He cannot quite comprehend it;

"You were _scared. _Every time you looked at me I could see your eyes all wide with fear."

She smiles then and it undoes him;

"That wasn't _fear." _The smile flickers at her lips as she steps closer.

-x-

So many peaceful evenings spent sitting, spread out and comfortable, she on the furs beside the fire, he in a chair just behind her. She tells him every night he does not have to light the fire, but he can see when she is cold and will not let her go that way for long.

In the end she gives in and never too unwillingly. And so she sits reading, sewing, and he bends down every so often to stroke her arm or kiss her head and she smiles and wonders why he is so easily distracted by her.

What she does not see is that when he is not actively touching her he watches her, even in the stillness and the silence and the peace, watches her unbelieving that this could be his life. She always assumes him to be keeping himself busy with something and sometimes he is and sometimes not. Sometimes just sitting with her is more than enough and more than he ever dared expect.

Sometimes she will turn and speak to him, ask him what she thinks of her sewing perhaps, and he will grimace and scowl and ask how the hell he should know. She will shake her head and ask him why he is always so hateful in that tone of voice where he knows she is mocking herself for the first time she asked him that question.

He never can get used to feeling himself smile so often and she, after so long of his proving it to her, finally does get used to feeling safe. It is not a dream come true, their dreams have too long been nightmares – it is a reality come true.

_x_


	9. Chapter 9

**This is a really dumb crack fic section: 5 times Sansa tried to kiss The Hound but got disrupted by her siblings and one time when she didn't. Everyone is happy and alive, living in Winterfell and Bran can walk. **

**8.**

It really was the true love's kiss she had always wanted, even if it was not the one she had always expected. She closed her eyes in blissful anticipation. Finally, she would feel those scarred lips against hers, not just in a dream, not just in her imagination but for real, _here _back home in Winterfell as she had always wanted, with the knight of her choice. Well the knight part was a technicality, she supposed. She could feel his breath on her face, hear his heartbeat, felt the rush of blood to her ears and then –

"Sansa's got a boyfriend! Sansa's got a boyfriend!"

Her older brother Robb ran past yelling.

"Oh!" she cried, scandalised. Then she sighed, shook her head, glared at Robb, slipped her hand into The Hound's –

"Come on," she beckoned as she led them out the gate and out into the trees.

-x-

There again, after repeated excuses for her brother's rudeness that her intended did not especially care to hear but bore with uncustomary patience, they were on the brink of the kiss. The one. The one her whole young life's dreaming had been leading her to, when out of the woods –

"Urgh, _gross_!" came a voice. Once again she looked up, fire flashing in her eyes;

"Arya!" she yelled. Her sister was stood there, just inside the trees, staring at them with an expression of utter disgust.

"You can't kiss him, he's all ….all…." Arya looked as though she wanted to be sick – "Horrible!" she finished.

"_You're _horrible!" Sansa retorted. But when she tried to chase her off, Arya decided this was the best game ever and kept coming back to be chased off repeatedly.

"She spoils everything!" She wailed, stamping her foot, whilst the Hound, who had sat propped against a tree to watch, laughed gently to himself;

"I could kill her for you."

"No…." she groaned, only half meaning it – "You can't. She's my sister –" a wad of mud and leaves hit her in the arm – "Unfortunately."

-x-

The third time it was Rickon. And Shaggydog. Sansa had been wary of an attempt to try again and had been on the lookout for any other irritating siblings. Sure enough within moments she felt a prickling at the back of her neck and turned around to see her littlest brother and his wolf standing very still and staring at her with their heads to one side in identical expressions of intent curiosity.

"Now that's just weird," Sandor announced, and stared back until they went away.

-x-

After that they sought out what they thought was the most impenetrable corner of Winterfell and were just relaxing in the certainty that nobody could find them here, when Bran's face popped over the top of a wall they had all previously assumed was not climbable- and he balanced there watching them benignly with a smiling expression of disinterest that was more disconcerting than any of her other siblings put together.

Sansa closed her eyes and started to count to ten. She got to five before sighing deeply.

"I hate you all," she announced.

-x-

The fifth time they never even reached the point of being interrupted; Sansa started yelling at Jon before he had even had a chance to annoy her. When she was finished he just looked at her, baffled –

"But – I was just walking past. I wasn't going to say _anything,_" he protested. Sansa opened and closed her mouth a few times.

"Oh," she stated, slightly apologetically, when Jon had already walked on by.

-x-

In the end she bolted the bedroom door and placed a wolf on guard outside, checked under the bed and in all possible corners before turning to Sandor and smiling, slightly shyly. The sun was setting outside the window, and the most beautiful rosy glow she could have asked for spilled in over the ledge and as the lovers fell relieved into one another's arms the beautiful sounds of singing drifted up from below. It was truly one of the five kisses rated the most perfect in all of the seven kingdoms, and when they broke away breathless all she could think to say was to shout down out the window –

"You can all stop singing now! Thank you!"

And her contrite siblings hurried away from where they had gathered in the light snow that had started to fall outside.

_x_

**I am an awful person. But I mean no disrespect to any characters herein or The Princess Bride which I maybe gently mocked there at the end – honestly how do you ****_rate _****a kiss? :-)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Er – so this is probably quite a weird au – but werewolf/ Sansa! Otherwise all details are as normal for season two…just that one erm …minor detail! ….oh and this one's strictly tv series canon rather than the books, this is relevant towards the end. **

**10.**

She awoke with a start and the bed sheets felt strange. They were wrong; they didn't feel good and her limbs were tangled up in them. Moonlight ghosted in through the window and seemed to beckon her with a power it had not had before.

She yawned, and her mouth felt strange. _Everything _felt strange. She could not make her head work the way it usually did, and somehow it did not seem to matter. She shook off the sheets and stood up in her bed. It felt good, _right; _she looked down at her paws and flexed the claws once, twice, growling softly with satisfaction. It was as though she had always been waiting for this to happen, she had just not known it before. This new skin prickled but she arched her spine and her fur bristled and it felt good. The moon was singing to her and she sang back.

-x-

The howl echoed around the castle, but everyone was asleep and thought they dreamt it, or drunk and thought they imagined it. The Hound was in the latter category, headed back late from a Flea Bottom tavern. His ears pricked at the sound and, attuned as he was to danger, he shed the warm buzz of drunkenness as though it were a skin, set his hand to the hilt of his sword and went off in search of the sound.

-x-

She opened the latch with her nose and padded out into the corridor. She could smell all the scents of stone and damp, smoke and wax from the candles, linen and velvet in the rooms beyond. She had hardly noticed before that fabric even had a smell. They were all so strong. But stronger still was the scent of the night air. The moon had a smell, clear and silver and tangy. The air smelled fresh and cold, beckoning her to drink it. She was thirsty, she realised, hungry like she had never been. She could hear the stream in the Godswood, smell the undergrowth and the wildlife within. She broke into a run, slipping through the shadows to cross the yard.

She howled again in joy once she found herself safe within the trees. The moon shone through the black leaves and howled back at her. She shook her herself and ran on, followed the smell of the water and ran to the pool. She drank from it before even looking at herself in the shiny darkness. She recognised herself as though she was always supposed to look this way; yellow eyes, dark red fur, shining teeth glinting in the light of water and moon.

She understood all at once; it was rooted in her new bones, as she had never understood before. The sigil of house Stark, all the things her father had never quite explained and her mother, as a Tully, had never known. Her father had had just the one sister, imprisoned and killed by Rhaegar Targaryen when he found out what she was. Why her father had treated Arya's wildness with such tolerance, why he had never even tried to tame her, why he spoke of his dead sister with a reverence that was almost like fear. Arya was _normal, _she realised. It was she who had always been the freak, a stranger to herself and her own nature. But not anymore! She laughed in her heart and it came out in a bark.

Her delicate nostrils caught the scent of blood and her ears pricked at the sound of a little heartbeat not far off. She chased the rabbit into the trees, salivating, the taste of blood already in her mouth.

-x-

He followed the strange animal sounds to the Godswood, not at all convinced he was doing the right thing. He killed men, not animals, and he was not a hunter. He had his short sword unsheathed by the time he had passed the first tree.

He saw the wolf in a clearing, the rabbit a bloody mess in its jaws. It looked up within seconds and stared at him for a moment. What the hell was a dire wolf doing in the centre of King's Landing anyway? He stared back, and the wolf began to growl. Its yellow eyes narrowed and he simply stood still, transfixed. Its eyes glowed out of the dark and for a crazy moment they made him think of wings. _I'm going mad, _he thought –_that's what it is, I'm going mad and I'm going to die _and then nonsensically – _I'm going to die thinking of birds._

And then the she – wolf sprang. He was knocked over onto his back and the sword went skirling out of his hand. The beast pinned him, claws sinking through his leathers and pricking into his chest. He did not know why it did not simply rip his throat out with its teeth, but he opened his eyes cautiously after the initial reflex of squeezing them closed in preparation for the blinding pain and ugly death and saw the wolf staring down at him panting, eyes gleaming, drooling softly from jaws splattered with rabbit blood. If it had not been madness, he would have said it was regarding him almost as though in thought.

Then it sniffed him. He could have sworn it _blinked. _Even that it looked confused almost- and then the pressure from its claws lessened as it shifted slightly, easing its weight back.

-x-

The first thought had been _danger. _This one was strong, the wolf could tell; predator perhaps? She was unsure. Then _meat. _She could smell the life's blood of this one, a thick salty stream beneath the skin. Suddenly rabbit seemed like nothing- she had to get her teeth in this. She had pounced with full intent to rip and tear and consume. It was only at the last second she had pulled back, inhaling a strange new smell that the male creature gave off; strange and yet familiar, something ancient and primal – _mate. _She sniffed, unsure, _man _and also _animal. _More animal than the other people she could smell further off. Then something almost wolf. She growled softly; she could not handle so many different ideas in this brain and though removing herself from the creature – _male, _her brain reminded her – was the last thing instinct told her to do, confusion sent her drawing back and slinking off fast into the trees.

-x-

It seemed wrong to keep trying to kill it after that. But at the same time he knew he could not just let a huge fucking wolf run rampant around the castle. He followed at a safe distance, surprised when it finally turned and headed back towards the keep. He watched it carefully; it was truly a splendid creature, fur just the right shade of red to trouble him with a connection he thought he should have been able to put his finger on but could not.

He did put his finger on it. Later. When he lost the wolf somewhere in the tower and the door to the Stark girl's room was the only one ajar.

_If it gets anywhere near her, I won't think twice _– he thought – _I'll kill it. _But it wasn't there. Just the girl, whimpering fitfully in her sleep. He could not watch her for too long, but he could not really leave either. He did not stray far from her door for the rest of that night.

-x-

When she awoke from her nightmare, she hurt and there was blood in the bed. It was animal, but she did not remember that. Could not register anything apart from a sense of panic, and jumping to her own conclusions, she was trying to destroy her bed sheets when he came in.

_How did he know? _She thought- _how was he even here? _But in the confusion and fear and disorientation it seemed the least of her worries.

"Will you tell?" she whispered, so quietly even Shae could not hear her across the room.

"No, Little Bird, I won't tell."

"But you have to take me to –"

_Please don't let it be Joffrey, _she thought, _please don't._

"The Queen," he growled lowly, not wanting to do it at all – "I'll take you to her." She wondered why he watched her so warily and guessed that he was simply as awkward around such things as she had heard men usually were.

"What will you tell her?" he asked her gently, to give her a chance to practise it.

"I'll tell her –" she bit her lip, not really knowing herself. Finally she nodded, coming to her conclusion and knowing that some way or the other it was a right one – "I'll tell her my moon blood has come."

_x_

**Okay so I know logically "Werewolf au" is not a sensible explanation of anything but it's always bugged me why and how The Hound was right there the morning she woke up from that dream. As explanations go it's probably the oddest I could have come up with but I think it seems to work! :-)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Is pwp. *shrugs* :-)**

**11.**

"I want to take you like the Dothraki fuck their women."

"What?" Her eyes went wide so quickly, and she coloured so prettily, that he grinned for knowing that she knew exactly what he was talking about.

"You heard me, little bird."

"But I –" she was blushing furiously now – "How _do _the Dothraki –" he laughed softly to hear her reticence to say the word, when he'd had her singing wildly for him every night now for the past few weeks.

"Like a dog," he whispered, grinning, lips half brushing, half kissing the side of her face. But the grin twitched away from his lips at the smell of her hair, the softness of her cheek against his own rough skin and he groaned only just audibly, kissing her hair, fingers on the soft skin of her throat as she arched instinctively towards him.

"Get on your knees, girl." The way he whispered it in her ear made her knees buckle anyway and any uncertainty she had been feeling buckled with them. Besides, he had promised her right at the start that he would never hurt her ("Not unless you ask me to," he had said, and even then; "Ask because you want it," he added, "Not because you think I do.") She had not imagined then why she might ask for such a thing, but she was coming more and more to feel such a request tingle on the tip of her tongue.

"Like this, my lord?" She turned her head over her shoulder and swallowed hard to see him look back at her with such blackness in his eyes.

"Not a lord," he rasped, voice thick and almost choked – "Maybe I can finally make you get that."

He kicked her legs apart, not cruelly, and she turned away when he rubbed a hand between her legs, glad he could not see her blush. She was always so ashamed to find herself so wet and all the more so because he _always _found out and never spared her sensitivities in the matter. She could feel her own wetness on his hands when he ran them up her thigh, tracing the line of her back all the way up to the shoulder. He kept that hold on her shoulder as he pushed into her hard and slow, slightly awkward at first and then stopping for a moment, sheathed completely inside her, filling her entirely. She bit her lip to keep from crying out above the gasp she could not hold back - at least for a moment. He started to thrust into her and she could hold it back no longer. But as soon as she screamed, he clamped a hard, rough hand across her mouth;

"Not a sound little bird, do you want them to find you like this? Being fucked like a bitch by the king's dog?"

He felt her moan behind his hand, felt the warmth of her cheeks, and bent over to sneer in her ear;

"I'm fucking you hard now girl, got my cock buried so deep inside you I can feel your little cunt stretch for me and you blush like a maiden at a few coarse words? Piss on that –"

He drove into her in harsh rough thrusts, laughing grimly to hear the little squeak of horror that escaped her at his words; but her cunt was as hot as her burning cheeks and he could feel her wetness sweet around his cock. She was so tight and so wet he had to grit his teeth for pleasure – and this was _his _–his sweet Sansa, the little bird moving and whimpering beneath him like an animal herself.

"Fuck –" he snarled. "Fuck girl you're so tight, so good- touch yourself girl, I want to hear you scream when I fill you with my seed."

She did. She could hardly understand herself for blushing, with such sweet explosive sensation running through her; he covered her with his body to whisper in her ear, crushing her and exciting her all at once and his voice sending shivers through her, shudders overlapping shudders. She did as she was told, laughing at herself to wonder if it made her a good girl still; she came when he filled her and this time he was too caught up in his own ecstasy to stop her from screaming.

She fell forward and lay there breathing hard for several long moments, feeling the sweat cool on her skin when their limbs disentangled. When she finally rolled over her he was looking at her with a face that seemed pained, almost as though he might cry.

"What is it?"

"It's –" he closed his eyes, reached for her, more needily than he meant to but only as much as he could help, she wriggled in gladly. "I can't –" she could feel him frown into her shoulder – "You're – _mine," _he managed, brokenly, disbelieving.

"Yes," she said, and he could not believe she could say it as though it were obvious, simple even – "I am yours, and you are mine."

He looked at her then long enough to see that she meant what she meant by what she said. He saw it and looked away again fast so that she would not see the tears in his eyes.

_x_

**I was a bit stuck, so I just wrote some porns….but I have two new chapters planned after this now. :-)**


	12. Chapter 12

**Sansa/ Sandor's Cloak. It's a beautiful, pretty much canon pairing I feel. I've taken and combined the best bits from the book and series for this one.**

**12.**

She did not know what it was kept drawing her back, but it seemed like every evening would find her there, picking gently through her summer silks to the cloak, neatly folded in the bottom of the trunk. She did not mean to, and she did not know what she meant by it. But she would find herself stroking the material, rough and not nearly as sweet to the touch as any of those silks or any of her own cloaks, but her fingers tingled with the fabric beneath them as they did not tingle for the softest of furs.

Each night was the same. She did not mean to take it out of the trunk but she would. She would first caress the material then press her face against it. She would breathe in the scent that still remained – and it was _horrible – _she did not know what possessed her to do such a thing. It smelled of blood and smoke, sweat and wine. She would breathe it in again, wrap the cloak around herself before getting into bed. It was heavy, solid and reassuring. Often, once she got settled beneath her covers with it wrapped around her she would wriggle out of her nightgown so it lay against her skin. It had to be in the dark, beneath the covers where she could not see herself or be forced to think about what she was doing.

It was like an embrace; she felt safer with it around her, as though she was being held gently and firmly, as though there was still someone around to keep her safe even though he was gone. She wished he was not gone, now it was only with her face pressed into the warm stiff wool at the collar that she could feel protected enough to sleep.

In the morning she would find the cloak tangled up in all her limbs. She would shake it out and fold it neatly and place it in the bottom of her chest all over again. She would take out all her dresses and replace them neatly back on top so that it would be too awkward to get it out again. So that she would forget about it. She never did forget about it. She took it out again every night.

And then some nights, when she could not sleep she would remember the first time she had had the cloak draped around her, that horrible day that no amount of trying would make her forget. But she remembered too how quickly he had come to cover her and _(you may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection)_ – and how, with all of those people staring at her and laughing, only he had averted his eyes. Only he had tried to tell them to stop. She remembered how awkward he had looked, and awkward again when he had come to her room the next day to ask for his cloak back. How she had given it to him with her face colouring, hoping the creases did not show from when she had slept with it around her then too. How she had awkwardly said _Thank you _– tried to say more but he had just as awkwardly shaken his head at her, replying with a pained _don't. _There had been something in his eyes she had been utterly unable to read as he turned away from her that day. Something that made _her _want to ask _him _if he was alright. He looked, when she thought about it, as though he had been stripped and beaten in front of the court himself. Something had almost made her call out to reassure him it was not his fault, that there was nothing he could have done. But she forced herself not to because he surely could not care _that_ much, and if he had he would have said otherwise.

Back then the cloak had still been white. Now it was cream and brown, streaked with black and red and more a hero's cloak now for all that than it was when it shone like the sun. Sometimes she looked at it and wished she could find some excuse to have it washed clean; then she looked again and did not want that at all.

She was sure the smell of him lingered long after it could possibly have done so.

And then there were the nights she awoke half way through the night from strange dreams to find much of it pressed between her legs and herself rubbing against it in her sleep. She could still bury her nose in the cape and breathe it in while she wriggled against the rough fabric that stirred something between her legs, created an exquisite and incomprehensible friction there when she moved. She would feel her chest flutter like there was a frantic bird inside and feel her own gasping breaths like butterflies in her throat.

Then she would remember that last night he had come to her. He had slept right here in _her _bed. She wondered if he had breathed in the smell of her in the linen as she breathed in his in the cloak. She remembered his breath on her face and the feel of his lips when he had kissed her. She had remembered something more; the feel of his manhood, hard beneath the layers of clothing that separated them, remembered how afraid she was and something else _(you may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection). _

She could not have said how it was that she had felt, but she would grind hard against the cloak, scrunched up between her legs, not knowing why or how this worked – or what it was even that she did. She could almost _feel _his hands upon her skin, touching her everywhere that the heavy fabric lay against her. It should have been someone else, she thought - anybody else- that she imagined touching her like this; she tried but their image, their idea never stayed_. Little bird, _he whispered in her ear, and when his hands dipped to rub her where the cloak lay between her legs her heart would stop and she would spasm, thrashing involuntarily, twisting about in her bed in the most delicious flood of sensation she had ever experienced. It left her blushing though she did not know what it was, left her wanting it again, afraid and overwhelmed by the rush she had felt. It felt like a secret, something miraculous she had invented and she would wrap his cloak neatly back around herself and sleep again smiling into the wool.

_You may now cloak the bride – _her mind would whisper it to her like a traitorous secret poured into her ear; _one flesh _– the voice would chant – _one heart, one soul, now and forever. _

_x_

**Just to let people know – I'm not just rudely ignoring all your awesome requests, it's just I have a tendency to sit down to start one and then end up writing something completely different. Chances are I'll try to write something later and it'll turn out accidentally being a request. I just suck at writing what I'm supposed to be writing! I'm sorry! :-)**


	13. Chapter 13

**Snippet from a Happy ever after AU – years later, Sandor and Sansa are long married with children, Sansa is Queen in the North, living back in Winterfell. Kinda fluffy.**

**13.**

The wall was cool and soothing, and Sansa's forehead felt hot against it as she groaned softly and with infinite patience. She remembered, as though it were a voice in her head, her mother telling her - _children are life's most trying of blessings._ She wondered what her mother would say if she could have seen her now; no doubt she would have been both pleased and sympathetic to have been proved right.

"Ned -" she sighed, so softly she knew they could not hear her above the racket they were making – "Robb, stop that, you're giving your mother a headache."

"Did you two hear that?" their father added, significantly louder than she was – "You're giving your mother a headache. Go play in the yard if you're going to make that sort of noise."

She smiled at him gratefully, pleased that the years of training seemed to have finally taught him how to chastise the children without letting loose a string of expletives she insisted they ought not to hear.

"The fuck's an expletive?" he had asked when she first asked him this. She was not sure she remembered laughing so much since she had been a child, a million strange years ago.

She remembered how she had dreamed of children; the silly, golden-hued vision of the future she had held on for far too long. Then she had come to think of it as a good thing if only because they would have distracted her from the awfulness of being married away for someone else's amusement. She had lost sight of the golden-hued vision or even the idea that she might marry for love. She had put it aside with all the old childish things.

And then he had come back. She had not seen it. Had not seen _him _not properly until that day he had returned to her. She had thought he was dead. She had been _told _he was dead. In truth The Hound _was _gone forever, leaving only the man who had always loved her and who she had always wanted, only she had been too blind, too stupid to see it. But the veils had fallen from her eyes in the instant of seeing him, returned to her by what seemed like magic and it had seemed to her in that moment she had never seen anyone so beautiful.

And here they were; seven years later, The Queen in the North and her consort, Winterfell rebuilt and the children she had always dreamed of. She had not even had to fight him for the break in tradition in giving them her name and not his. Since Daenerys Targaryen had taken the Iron Throne, maternal succession had become more and more normal.

Everything was what she had given up expecting it could be – perfect.

"But it's _miiiine!" _Robb wailed.

Well, close to perfect anyway.

"Ned give your brother back his –" she peered at the toy they were fighting over, which was, quite miraculously, still in one piece – "knight," she finished.

"It's _not _his" Ned insisted stubbornly – "It's mine. He didn't even _ask –" _

"Enough!" their father bellowed suddenly, loud enough to make them all jump. Sansa looked over to him and felt a worried flutter in her chest at the scowl he was giving them. It was that old angry look that had scared her as a child and that she saw so rarely these days. When she saw it nowadays it hurt her, knowing as she did that it contained more pain than real rage;

"Let me tell you boys a story," he said, devastatingly calmly.

"Sandor –" she sighed gently. He ignored her and she rolled her eyes. She had only been young when she had heard this story herself and he told it to them far more gently than he had to her. There was a beat of silence when he finished as the boys stared at him wide eyed. Then Ned thrust his arm out straight and sudden, slipping the little knight into his brother's hand;

"You can keep it," he almost squeaked.

"You can share," Sandor looked at the two of them with a deep and benign smile. "Good lad." He patted Ned clumsily on the shoulder and beamed at them approvingly – "You two run along now."

The boys ran. Sansa shook her head and smiled;

"You shouldn't –" she began. She stopped –she was not sure he should not have at all.

"Worked, didn't it?" He grinned, held out his arms to her, and she slipped into the nest of his arms, wriggling herself into that familiar much loved spot – "It's just us now, little bird – what you going to do about it?"

She smiled warmly, kissed him lightly and yawned;

"Sleep". She stretched, nuzzled, and nestled herself down, head on his shoulder, doing like a little animal in the unexpected peace and warmth of the evening.

_x_

**I was deliberately vague on how this au would have come to be because I'm thinking of working it into a much longer story. Essentialy this is my personal perfect ending to things, certainly I'll be writing more with this reality! :-)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Yaay, I'm up to date now, watched all the seasons – so this bit is set late season 3, while Sandor's road–tripping with Arya. Mostly crack really. Meh, total crack actually. :-P**

**I guess this should have a warning for language cause y'know – Sandor and Arya. **

**14.**

Sandor swore violently for the thousandth time that day. Arya swore back, twice as violently. It was becoming a pattern.

"Seven fucking hells!" Sandor groaned – "You're annoying as fuck, you know that?"

"And what are you then?" Arya retorted.

He opened his mouth, closed it again, rode on in silence for less than a minute before breaking out again;

"You know, I thought your sister was annoying; all that bloody chirping and false courtesy. All those bloody manners. What happened? She take so many your teachers have none left for you?"

"You can't hate us _both," _Arya sulked stubbornly – "Not for _opposite _reasons."

Another silence, long enough for Arya to start to think he was done before –

"I _didn't _hate your sister. Told you. I _rescued _her. Not just the once. More times than she knew."

He muttered the last so quietly Arya only just heard and for the first time it made her start to believe him. After that she started watching him a bit more closely, watching to see what was there, just like Syrio had taught her. It did not take her long to see something in his eyes when he talked about her sister, something that made her roll hers in return.

She managed not to say anything though, at least for half a day of travelling, not until they had stopped that night and she was chewing on a rabbit's leg by the fire.

"You know you eat like a bloody animal," he called over almost conversationally from his safe distance under a tree – "Where'd you learn that. Your sister – she was like a little bird. Such pretty little habits, like a dance. You –"

"Seven bloody hells!" Arya choked – just because she didn't like him didn't mean she could not pick up a choice phrase or two, and at least have the benefit of saying them around someone who wasn't going to tell her not to – "Will you shut up about my bloody sister?"

"I was _not –"_

"You were so," she waved the rabbit leg at him threateningly – "We all get it. You're in love with her. You and the rest of the seven stinking kingdoms."

"I am _not _in love with your sister!"

"You are so!" He _was _so. Arya's suspicion had been utterly confirmed by how quickly and unnecessarily loudly he had yelled this at her – "You've done nothing but go on about her the whole bloody day. And the last. On and on. Sansa this, Sansa that, oh did I tell you that time when your sister did this, blah blah blah, your sister would never do that, oh and that one time your sister took a shit and I was there to watch like a creepy stalking freak –"

"You _shut _your cunt mouth!"

"I will if you shut yours about my sister!"

"I do _not _go on about –"

"You do so!"

"Do. Not!"

Arya chucked the bone at his head.

"She'd never like _you _anyway. She likes _knights _and _ladies _and all that stupid pretty stuff, not big ugly idiots like you."

"Oh you know her so well do you?"

"Better than _you _do. Oh –" Arya clutched her chest and threw herself down in a fake swoon –

"Do you know her _heart? _Do you look into her _eyes _and see her _soul? _Are you the only person who understands her in all the wide world? Oh Sansa, will you marry me? You can close your eyes and pretend I'm pretty…."

"That's it –" Sandor got up and marched towards her – "I'm going to skin you like that bloody rabbit –"

Arya was up and into a tree, quick as a snake;

"You see? This is why she'll never love you – you don't tell a girl you'll _skin _her."

"You're not a _girl. _You're a bloody little beast."

"I bet my _sister _is sooo much less beastly than me!" Arya yelled down from the branches.

"I should have kidnapped her instead of you!" he shouted back "Not like I didn't try," he muttered, kicking a stone. He slouched off, skirting the fire widely, and curled up to sleep beneath an opposite tree, his back to where Arya was, pulling his cloak up high over his head to shut it all out. He was nearly asleep, when he heard a thud, footsteps and then, far too closely in his ear –

"Ohhh Sansa, sweet, darling Sansa….."

He lashed out with all limbs and a half-hearted roar, barely hitting Arya at all, more was the pity.

"I _will _still cook and skin you, girl. Go the fuck to sleep."

He heard her walk some distance off and lie down and was just starting to tentatively hope she had actually gone to sleep when he heard a chattering more irritating than her bloody list.

"Oh Sansa _please _love me, even though I'm old and ugly and smell like a rotting turd –"

He reached for a small rock, threw it in Arya's direction;

"Can you go back to trying to hit me with a rock, because I swear by the seven –"

"Ohhhh _Sansa!" _Arya was unrelenting and merciless and Sandor got no sleep that night until she did.

-x-

The next morning he pointedly said nothing to her, and Arya did nothing but grin at him in a more than usually wicked way. Only when he had hauled her up in front of him on Stranger and started off a little way did she half turn and say –

"If I was my sister, would you have a great big –"

"Girl, if you finish that sentence I swear to the gods I will dump you off this horse like an unwanted shit."

She finished it. He pushed her off and trotted on in blissful peace. Half a mile later he groaned and went back for her.

"You wouldn't have done that if I was my sister."

"Girl, if you were your sister, you don't want to know –"

"_Urgh –_ shut up!"

"You shut up."

And on they rode.

_x_

**So this came into my head after that bit, I think it's season 3 episode 8, where he says to Arya about rescuing Sansa and she doesn't believe him. After that I just completely head cannoned that he went on about her all the time, not really realising he was doing it and got a very strong image of Arya being like "Yeah god damn it we get it, you fancy my sister". Thence came this fic. :-)**


	15. Chapter 15

**Five times Sansa prayed for Sandor.**

**15.**

**Mother**

The first time, she remembered, it was just before the Blackwater; before everything had become so strange and so confused. She had asked the Mother to save him as he had saved her more than once. She did not know where it came from, this sudden awareness that he needed so badly to be saved. Maybe it was the fire in the sky beyond that made her think of it – _we all hate this, he must hate it most of all. _Maybe it was the sound of her own heart crying it out in a voice that she did not recognise as her own. Maybe it was the look in his eyes when they had last spoken, that dark look so full of anger and rage that she had wanted to cry. She had been glad he had told her to leave, otherwise she might have vacillated forever between wanting to run and wanting to help. She did not know how she could help and so she prayed.

She had always gone to The Mother first, just as she had gone to her own mother; since King's Landing she had spoken with her more than ever. _He _would never pray to such, she was sure, he would pray to The Father, or The Warrior, never the one who could truly help.

She had felt dreadfully then, how much he needed to be calmed, to be soothed, how much he needed the help that she prayed for. She had flung every last ounce of faith into her trust that she would be answered.

Yes, she had believed whole heartedly in that moment that her prayer would be heard.

**Warrior**

She had not imagined, such a short time ago, that she would ever pray for the Warrior again. He had never drawn her personally the way the Mother had, the Maiden and the Crone. But she had prayed to him before, back in Winterfell, for her father when he went to battle. She had not known really what it all entailed but he had seemed the right choice. Her mother had always said that what seemed right _was _right – at least with prayer if with nothing else.

She was not in the right place for it now but she prayed all the same. She wondered if the gods could hear if you were not in the Sept or other holy place. But she found herself praying all the same, before she quite knew that she was.

She had been sat for so long beneath his cloak that the world had narrowed down all the way to just herself in this warm and heavy cave of cloth. At first she had sat there, feeling hollow and strange and wrong – _he did not wait for me to answer, _she thought, trying to work her head around what had happened – _I should have gone with him, I should, why did he not wait for me? Why ask me and then just leave? _It was all tied up in so many other things she did not understand, why had she felt tears on his face when he left? Why had his voice been so very broken? What had he meant when he said that he was lost? _She _felt lost herself now, here in the dark with the taste of his kiss still warm upon her lips. She felt bruised with it, unmade as though it were her maidenhead he had taken and not just a kiss.

_I've made the wrong decision. _She thought it dully over and over again. Only when she could no longer find strength to beat herself with this accusation did she think _I hope he gets out of the city safe – all that fighting, all that fire, Warrior save him, don't let him be hurt more. _She had caught herself praying before she knew she meant to. She supposed she ought to pray for everyone, but she had prayed so tirelessly and for so much of late this was all she could really find that her heart would stay involved in. She could almost feel his fear and a strange animal terror, as though it was her, braving the fire that he was so afraid of. She prayed to the Warrior to take her fear in offering that he would take away some of his. She had never offered so much of herself before, not when she had sat down with the intent to pray, even for her father and brothers, never said – _please, if I can take some of the pain, some of the horror, let me, don't let him take it all _– she surprised herself by meaning every word.

She was not sure the gods would hear beyond the clamour and noise outside but she persisted through the night nonetheless.

**Smith**

She dreamed strange dreams in the Eyrie. They began with her flying away, far away to settle in a place she felt more at home. _Anywhere _felt more like home – and she had not known she could have felt more out of place than she had in King's Landing.

Sometimes the dreams carried over into the day and she found herself imagining, even though she was coming to dread her own imagination and the false promises it could bring. She would think about rebuilding a place, Winterfell at best but on some days any place would do. She would think about strong hands following her directions, placing bricks on top of bricks, forming walls until all around her a home grew up in her head like a garden.

And every time she made believe there was only one person beside her in the future she envisioned. She never meant it to be that way, but there he was. She would see his hands first as they worked, clearing rubble, moving stone, large hands and rough. Not like she had imagined her true knight's hands to be; she had imagined something soft like silk but he had shown her there was no honesty in that. Knights were fighters, killers, it made the palms rough and the fingers callused and that was right. It made her skin tingle to think in a way that her earlier dreams had never done.

He was always there, her knight, her lord – though both words were insufficient and she prayed amongst everything else for a new language, for a description that fit. It never came, but eventually in her mind he would turn to her and smile, all the way from mouth to eyes and she would not even see his scars for how hard she smiled back.

It was a dream, an impossible one she was sure could never come true, she did not even fully comprehend it. But she prayed to the Smith to make it so all the same.

**Maiden**

She had all but lost sight of any hope from prayer, but sometimes late at night swift snatches of hope sparked in her all the same. Even though she had told herself she would never marry for love anymore, she had not accepted it. She supposed it would be easier if she did, but her heart could not, dull though she imagined it was these days. She felt defiant in holding on to any knowledge of her own heart – _I'm not Alayne, how would I know what she feels? _She would lie in bed repeating over and over to herself _Sansa Stark Sansa Stark Sansa Stark, _building up a wall of steely armour on the inside that she constructed from bits of herself.

But then one night in the midst of her new prayer she heard herself whisper _Sansa Clegane. _She shocked herself so much with it she actually sat upright in bed, gasping, heart pounding wondering where in all the kingdoms _that _had come from. _Sansa Stark _was her prayer now, she offered it up every night, more often than not to the Maiden to whom she prayed for help from all those with designs upon her. She may have lost all hope of marrying for love, but she had become more and more adamant every day that she would give up her maidenhead for love. Every worrying look Littlefinger gave her just strengthened her resolve.

But here this new name came after so many nights of _Sansa Stark _having convinced her that names were wishes. She felt the heat spread from her cheeks all the way through her. _Sansa Clegane? _She whispered it again in her mind, not daring to say it out loud. It was surely some madness, but then why did it sound so sweet? She hid beneath the covers and did not pray again that night.

**Stranger**

She had given up on prayer, she was sure of it. She had fortified herself well enough now nothing could touch her so much that she would need it.

Then she heard the news that Sandor Clegane was dead. She had already heard that The Hound was doing terrible things and she had not believed it. But then the news came in all certainty and she could do nothing, betray no interest in front of anyone, for what was Sandor Clegane to her? Her mind could only chant, like a dull bell all that day, _he is dead, he is dead. _It was meaningless. Only when she got a moment alone that evening did she allow it to take root and the roots twisted around her ribs until her insides started to scream.

She had wanted to scream aloud but no power on earth would have made her give Littlefinger the excuse to come to her. She had stuffed her fist in her mouth, bent double with silent screaming so deep and ripping at her heart she could not even cry.

There was only one resolve she could reach that could make it better. She had clenched her fists and pressed her lips together hard, her eyes sore from not crying as she seized the first prayer that had come to her in forever, _don't let it be true. _

She had been afraid of the Stranger as a child, with his cloak and his darkness and the fearful prospect of death. She knew that even brave men did not pray to him. She did not pray. She screamed. It was anger she offered, anger and disbelief, _you cannot have him you cannot, you cannot – _and without her meaning to say it – _he is not yours, he is mine! _The tears had finally come then, and she had started to think she had run dry.

For the first time in all her life a real feeling of peace had come over her. She remembered, as though someone was showing her - how the flames beneath the stranger had painted his face half animal in their light on the night of the Blackwater. She remembered what Cersei had said – Littlefinger had told her at the time with a bizarre amount of glee – _She will be singing to the Stranger, begging for his kiss. _She remembered as though the same sinister hand was showing her on a page – remembered a song and a kiss and a face that was only half human. Of all the gods to ever answer a prayer she could have sworn it was a voice in her head saying _Girl, would I take away my own? _

She was not afraid anymore. For the first time in her life she _knew _– without ever being able to say how. She knew he was alive and would somehow come back to her, though he was so far away from her at the moment she had no idea how he would reach her.

And then – that finger was pointing her way again – she remembered the name of his horse and began to smile.

_x_

**I got this idea yesterday, listening to "Whistle Down the Wind", from a line in "Unsettled Scores". In fact that whole song is so Sandor it made me want to scream. Then I had a vague memory and went and listened to "Nature of the Beast" and seriously the sansan is so intense I was in floods of tears by two minutes in. Seriously, go listen, the sansan is strong! Woo! :-)**

** watch?v=vOhzVBS6ZmA**

** watch?v=q4DNC4Q8KwU**

**Seriously, go there and weep. :-)**

**(Actually there may be a whole long WDTW AU brewing in my head now…..ugh :-))**


	16. Chapter 16

**Set at the end of season 4, when Sansa's just about to appear in the dress and Sandor's at the gate with Arya.**

**16.**

_I wonder – _she thought, looking at herself in the mirror – _what kind of a bird I would be, exactly. _She made faces at herself, trying to remember what she was supposed to look like. It was strange how much like a different person you could look simply on account of a different hair colour; she felt as though even her face looked different. She scowled at Alayne in the mirror and smoothed the feathers at her shoulders.

_Not the mockingbird, _she thought, _never that. _A voice drifted up like ash, rising out of Sansa's memories, a quiet unbidden phoenix _– one of those pretty little singing birds from the summer isles. _She wondered why her cheeks felt hot upon hearing that rasping voice inside her head, so close – just the way they always did. She nodded to the girl in the mirror –_that's what I'll be then. _She turned her back on the other girl.

_I'm not her, _she thought, and it felt rebellious, wicked of her to think it. It felt good too; _well let me be bad then, I'm not her whoever she is. _She was not even sure that she liked her, but then she felt bad all over again for do disliking some poor bastard girl who had done nothing to her. _I hardly know her, _she reminded herself, and really, it was easier to play a character she disliked than one that felt a lot closer to herself. _But I must remain kind, _she told herself – _kind and brave like a girl in a song._

_Sansa is so silly, _Alayne laughed it back at her from the mirror, Alayne was always more scornful than she was, older and more superior – _a silly little girl to still remember such stories._

_But I am a dark singing bird, _Sansa thought – _flightless and silent now. _She sighed. It really was a beautiful dress though and she was proud of it. She moved around the room in a slow twirl, stretching out her arms and –

_The little bird thinks she has wings, does she? _

She jumped as though someone had really spoken, but it was just that voice, tickling her head again and making it tingle with all that gravel. _Going crazy _she thought – _dear gods what's wrong with me? Too many blows to the head – _

She wondered when he had ever encountered those birds that he had spoken of; she could not picture him, calm and contemplative in the summer isles, watching them fly and listening to the bird song. Maybe someone in his family had kept one in a cage once. Suddenly she _was _picturing it; a small boy with no friends, hiding his face in the company of animals, watching the bird, ever so gently stroking its soft feathers, feeding it through the bars of the cage. He would touch it so very gently, aware of its smallness and his size and strength – like his fingers on her face the first time Meryn Trant had hit her. Her heart cried out with a little _oh _of soft song, fluttering against the bars of its own cage . She imagined him feeling too strongly about this helpless, stupid little thing. She wished she could have been that boy's friend. She imagined him setting it free, sad to see it go but smiling as he watched it fly up into the sky. It was a thought that warmed her more than anything should have been able to warm her in this cold place up in the clouds. She scolded herself – she had to stop thinking about him, it was ridiculous. She would probably never see him again. She could never have said why the thought left her feeling so bereft.

But then why did he suddenly feel so near? Her chest felt hot and tight with it – _we have to ride out! _She thought, sudden and fierce – _we have to ride out now and by the Bloody Gate! _She had no idea where the certainty came from but it hammered at her chest like a smith at an anvil.

_One day _she thought, _One day I'll fly, I'll fly so far away from here nobody would ever know there was a time I stayed to nest! _But for now she would the chain around her neck like the prisoner she was. But it felt like a lie, just like Alayne did. _She's a lie but I'll tell it all the same if it gets me out of here in the end._

She went down the stairs smiling, confident in the knowledge that she had perfected this disguise. Confident too that she was still harbouring the fugitive Sansa beneath it all. Let Littlefinger think the smile was for him! He was so stupid, but he thought he was so clever, just like all the rest of them. She would _never _smile for him.

A crazy jumping inside her cried out _maybe if we leave now! _But maybe what? She did not know anything beyond the stupid wild feeling of unformed hope.

"Shall we go?" she smiled to hide her eagerness to leave. She could have sworn she heard the valley shake to the sound of crazy laughter, a laugh that sounded so similar to her own voice. It had to be the sound of her own head, she thought, laughing at the foolishness of her heart.

-x-

Arya's laugh startled the birds from the trees and Sandor went from staring at her like she was crazy to watching them tumble in a flurry up into the cold air. For himself he could feel nothing but disappointment, and he supposed that was at least a large part of what she found so amusing.

Now there was no excuse or way to get up to The Eyrie, and it had felt to him all this time like the place he had to get to and not just for Arya. He could not have explained it; just that he had found himself leaning towards the place as though it were a magnet, like it called him, but that was as stupid as anything else. He watched the birds fly up high around the tower windows, following them until they disappeared from view. He watched until the world went still again.

He felt a sense of failure far greater than just not getting rid of the wolf – bitch. He growled at her to shut up. She did not. She was still giggling softly and maniacally to herself as they rode away.

He wished he could have found any reason to stay a little longer. Riding away had only ever felt so wrong once before, and then the wildfire at his back had been a good enough incentive to keep riding. He could not say why but he threw the thought back over his shoulder as they left, like an apology, thinking it fiercely and quickly before Arya started finding new ways to hassle him –

_I will find you little bird, I swear. I will find you again._

_x_

**This has been knocking round my head for awhile – a sort of a ****_what if they both kinda knew how close the other one was at that point _****thing – cause god knows I got pangs thinking about it so why shouldn't they? :-)**

**Sorry I've been a while updating this. Been working on ****_One Day In An Ever After. _****:-)**

**Also yeeah, I nearly quoted ****_Cinderella's _****"Be kind and have courage" – because if it's not soooo Sansa I don't know what is. :-)**


	17. Chapter 17

**Sometimes I think about writing meta, like when I'm thinking too much about the events of the bobw. But I'm better at fanfic, so this happened. Is angst. Enjoy. :-)**

**17**

He rode out from King's Landing in a nightmare; the crackling and screaming and clashing ringing all around him. He could not get far enough away quickly enough. But even though the nightmare was all in the flame and the dying, all he could hear in his head was her song.

What had he done? Why had he gone to her? How could he have let anyone see him like that, least of all her? He replayed the sounds of all that he had said, all that she had said over and over in his head until it drowned out the fire and noise. It was not a relief. It was a nightmare worse than that. How could he? What must she have thought? The worse it seemed the less he could make it go away. It became the case that he could cope with the memory of the wildfire, the burning fucking arrows coming at him, men burning and screaming. He would have given anything to be afraid of all that again rather than replay his every stupid action after walking away.

_He had fallen asleep in her bed. _He only half remembered how he had been; shaking, laughing, crying into her pillow. He could not hold onto that feeling, thank the gods, but he could remember how he clutched her pillow, and the smell of her in the sheets, and how it sweetened it all until he could fall mercifully asleep.

Even that was not as bad as everything that came after. Every stupid thing he said rocked and pounded like a drumbeat in the head screaming _why why why? _She was so afraid already, lovely as ever, he did not even deserve to be near her. He could smell the wine on her breath and had not even realised until now when it was too late that she had barely had time to understand him, let alone register what he had offered her. _She never replied,_ he realised, only miles out of town – _Never gave her the chance to say no. _Selfishly guarding himself from a negative that might have broken him completely, he had run like a coward and taken back the offer of freedom and safety. He cursed himself for an idiot, a coward, a freak and a wretch until he was ready to scream at himself to shut up.

_If you scream I'll kill you. _

There was not a single thing he had said, a single thing he had done that had been the right thing to do. He did not remember what she said that had woken him; he just remembered grabbing for her as though he was drowning. It only occurred to him now that a girl would not see it that way, alone in her room with some cunt's hand over her mouth. And as if he _could_ have made it worse, he had managed;

_I only know who's lost. Me._

He had always been lost; he had not realised it until he said it out loud. He had been too drunk to even realise he had said it out loud. As lost and helpless as a baby animal in the dark. Fuck. He had told her he would kill her. He would _never _have killed her. Never even hurt her. Never let anyone hurt her. Except he had. So many times. He managed to force _that _to the back of his wretchedness. For now.

There was plenty more to beat himself up with, after all. He had been so busy mocking her, her to whom he should not have dared fucking speak – he had not heard, until now in memory the sorrow and fear in her voice when he told her he was going.

_Going? _She echoed, her eyes had been wide, almost making him think she would not wish such a thing.

_The little bird repeats whatever she hears. _

It was harsh. Too harsh. He had never been anything but a cunt to her. He wondered that she had spoken to him at all. _Little bird – _he wanted to be able to say the words again. He should not have left her behind. If they called him a coward they would be right; but not for the reasons they would think. He wondered if _she _would think him a coward. She should. Would have to. She was never as stupid as he told her she was.

Finally, she had asked him why he was there, and he wondered she had not got to that sooner, wondered that she was not more afraid. What could a man like him want in a young girl's room? What _did _he want? He had said the only thing he could think to say and it was a lie, perhaps. He did not know what he wanted; just that he could not have it, whatever it was. He should have _forced _her to come with him. He wondered if he would feel better or worse right now if he had.

Why had she had to delay so long? It had only made him think about what he really wanted. He did not even want what he really wanted. Even she must have seen it. He had been so angry with her, so convinced she would rather do anything but look at him, it never for a moment occurred to him – not until later – that she might have done it without being forced. He was not angry with _her _at all. Not really. He had just kept on digging himself deeper into his pit, pinning her on the bed like that, desperate for her, desperate not to hurt her, telling her he would kill anyone wo tried at the same time as fearing she could feel how hard he was for her.

He would have. No lie. He just never meant to actually tell her that. It was a mess. He had never been such a fucking mess in his life, certainly not so that anyone could see. He had almost kissed her – would have, if she had not closed her eyes and he had not jumped straight to the usual conclusion. Thinking about it now, he realised girls always closed their eyes to be kissed. By rights she should have been staring at him in fear. In that moment, and that moment only he wished he could have killed her, just to clear his head. He had twisted the knife's point right against her throat and what girl would ever think softly of someone who did that? What the hell kind of a dog was he? _He _could not have sung for someone under such provocation. But she was stronger than him. She always had been. When she started to sing she had shamed him and touched him to the core all in one devastating verse.

Because her song was the song of forgiveness, redemption. _Mercy. _He did not deserve it, not any of it. He did not even know why he had been so intent on making her sing. He wondered if he had meant something else by it all along; something he did not even know that he meant. As soon as she started he had almost wished she would stop. That sweetness, that care, it was worse than if she had started screaming. He could not hurt her after that; could not look at her, could not bear to be himself so acutely that he had all but fled from her, not stopping to think until now that he had not given her the chance to come with him even if she had wanted to.

But why would she want to? It was almost a relief to know that she would not. He did not even want to be in his own company, and maybe she was right, maybe she was safer in King's Landing _(she is not safer there, _a cruel voice that was quite his own whispered viciously in his head, _she is not safe and you know it.)_

He kicked his horse harder, to drown out his own thoughts beneath the clatter of the horse's hooves, to put all the distance he could between himself and those damned fires. But he could not drown out one moment of her song and nothing could cool the fire eating him up from inside. He could not think, could not feel, just ride, ride for his little life.

_x_

**Eh, nothing new here I guess, just some angst because it wanted out. :-)**


	18. Chapter 18

**So ages and ages ago ****_Direwaggle42 _****suggested a sansan pet shop AU and I couldn't quite work it out but here go, it's not quite ****_exactly _****as requested but I hope I got it roughly right! Sansa is about 16 in this and Sandor 18, it's modern day. **

**18.**

There were a lot of things he hated about this job, he didn't even know where to start. The job _itself _ perhaps – the animals in cages, the ethics of the whole damn thing stank, he only managed to legitimise his working there by reminding himself that if he didn't someone else would, and they might not treat the animals half as well as he did.

His only consolation, really, was that they didn't take that many animals. Fish yes and smaller creatures, but only the larger ones when they took them on as a favour to an irresponsible breeder. He got _angry _about irresponsible breeding, but he had learned to go off into a stockroom until the urge to punch things passed.

And to be honest, he was grateful to get the job at all; most employers took one look at him and found a dozen reasonable reasons why they didn't want him working for them. But Lannister ltd owed his father a debt apparently and they were paying it off in employing the unskilled, unlikeable and frankly hideous younger son. It helped that this shop was one of the few in town that had dared put a ban on his brother's ever coming in. Gregor was not spoken kindly of anywhere in town, but while they could deal with his brutishness in the film and music businesses it was less tolerable around animals, making the pet shop the only place in town Sandor could feel close to safe.

Not that Gregor _needed _to come and bother him anyway. He had it all; still lived at home and was somehow breezing his way through college on the back of an athletics scholarship. Sandor had no idea how they rigged his grades into something even passable but the whole fact of this happening had put him off the whole bloody business of education.

Which left him here, stupid and disfigured, cleaning out hamsters and handling the tarantulas when nobody else dared. Tarantulas didn't hurt you anyway, more afraid of you than you were of them. Sandor always ended up in charge of the insects and reptiles, he didn't care. They were sweet creatures.

School had been enough of a nightmare for him anyway, hardly like he wanted to face _that _sort of trauma any longer than he had to. Animals never called him names or even looked at him funny; kittens and puppies would eve lick him in the face which could move him nearly to tears at times. Plus his superiors had to call him by his real name, at least in front of customers, Cersei would do anything to keep up appearances and she even made Joffrey keep his barbs to the staff room.

Joffrey was one of the biggest problems really. Living as Sandor did, in a room above the shop, there was no way to avoid the owner's spoiled spiteful son, who only worked weekends in the shop for the chance to eye up schoolgirls and try and demonstrate a tender side he did not have as they cooed over kittens. What they never saw was the boy kicking his way into Sandor's room of a morning and ordering him out of bed and down the street to fetch his lunch. They didn't hear the way he spoke to him or ever see what he did to those animals he could steal from the shop. Not that _that _happened anymore, after Sandor had got the courage to report him; the only time Cersei had really put her foot down with the boy.

To be fair though, the schoolgirls were a problem for Sandor too. He tried to stay away, but they came in in these groups too big for the shop and had to be kept an eye on. If they only giggled at him it was a good day, more often he could see how quickly he was putting them off their potential lunch, see them wrinkling their noses in disgust and backing away _then _giggling. He tried not to hear them.

There were a group in today, over by the rabbits, Sandor watched them warily from behind the till. His heart sank as he saw Joffrey saunter over to them and successfully get into their space whilst feigning interest. He paid no attention to what they were saying at first, just heard the rise and fall of their voices, one of the girls seemed delighted with Joff, he could see her toss her hair and crinkle her nose in the most winning of expressions. Not satisfied with this though Joffrey was trying it on with her friend as well, a quiet red – haired girl, stiller than the rest, who smiled rather than giggled, and nervously, Sandor thought.

"The only good rabbits are in pies" Joff was saying – "Father lets me hunt with him sometimes –"

The first girl said something swoony that Sandor did not hear but the second turned away from him long enough for him to see the disgusted look on her face.

"That's _horrible" _she announced. Joffrey scowled.

"Here –" he said, and Sandor could hear the meanness creeping into his voice – "Look at this instead."

Foolishly the girl followed where he was pointing and found herself trapped by the angle Joffrey put himself at and forced to look into the spider cabinet. He could see her shudder from behind and for some reason he could not quite fathom could not stop himself calling Joffrey over on a thinly veiled pretence. To his relief the older girl followed and, once Joffrey had dismissed the nonsense Sandor had come up with she continued flirting with him. Before Sandor knew it the two of them were stepping out the door with the girl calling to her friend –

"Sansa I'm going out with Joffrey, we'll be in Baelor's!"

The girl looked around in surprise but by the time she even saw where her friend had gone she had whirled out the door, taking Joffrey with her. Now with only the two of them in the shop Sandor came out from behind the till.

"I'm sorry about Joffrey" he said, awkwardly, standing behind her.

"That's alri- oh!" she broke off as she turned around to see him and her hand went to her mouth before she could stop herself.

"I'm sorry – I –" she babbled. He wished she would stop. _She _wished she would stop, she knew better than to be rude to people but she had been so startled by that mess of a face – and coming on top of that terrible boy – she knew she was making it worse but she was trying to undo her initial shock and think of something to say to make it better.

"I'm sorry" she said again, looking down at the floor. Sandor sighed; he wished she could look at him, if only so that he could look back at her; she must have had the prettiest face he had ever seen, her eyes were big and blue, they made him think of the sky and her voice was a bird in that sky, light and fluttering.

"Do I frighten you that much?" He could not believe he was still talking, normally he'd have grunted and given up already – "As bad as one of them?" he gestured the spiders.

"You're not – you don't – I mean –" she stammered and then nodded to where he gestured – "They're just so _ugly –" _she went bright red at that – "I mean – I – I'm sorry –"

"You mean they're ugly but so am I? And I wondered why no-one ever asked me what I was doing in a place like this. Let me guess you came in for a hamster."

"No – I – I –" she was flushed but he noticed with futher delighted surprise that she had not actually fled yet or just yelled a goodbye. He even found himself stepping aside so that the way out the door was clear for her if she wanted it. She watched him but made no attempt to move any further away from him – "A bird maybe" she finished, cursing herself in her head for being so lame.

"Yeah" he grunted – "You would. A little singing bird, pretty as –" He coloured up so fast he wished the floor would open up beneath him – _pretty as you _he was going to say and when he dared to look at her he saw her smile and knew that she knew he had been going to say it.

"But I don't think I'd like to see it caged up" she added – "So I – but then I –" She blushed prettily – "Can I stroke one?"

"A bird?" his lips twisted into something that was almost a smile, he hoped it did not terrify her away altogether – "They're not the easiest – but soft – softer than anything – here –" he opened up the smallest cage –

"This one's got a broken wing – I was –" he looked away from her – "Taking care of it – you can –" He let her reach in and watched how shyly, how gently she stroked its little feathers. She in turn watched the bird hop onto his hand, marvelling at how large his hands were and yet how gentle. It occurred to her that she really did not want to leave as she probably ought, to find Margery – and she refused to question herself further as to why that might be.

When she looked up she caught him smiling at her with such a warm look in his eyes she could not even find him hard to look at anymore. When he caught her looking he looked away.

"Well –" she said – "I – thank you – I –"

"You don't have to be so polite all the time"

"How do you know I'm polite all the time?" she smiled, still frowning at herself _Sansa Stark are you flirting?_

"Guess" he grunted.

"I should –"

"Yes"

"I'll come back in –"

"You don't –"

"But I will"

"Fine" _Why? _he cursed himself _why am I almost arguing this?_

"Goodbye then"

"'Bye" he grunted. She smiled at him as she went out and he felt his heart sink and leap and knew that he was done for.

"Bye little bird" he whispered as the door closed behind her.

_x_

**See, I ****_do _****write suggestions, it just sometimes takes me a while to get to them! I've literally never done a modern AU for anything before though so I hope this worked! Also I had to work out how to write this without making pet shops look like really awesome places! I'm actually tempted to write a follow up to this at some point now though! :-)**


	19. Chapter 19

**So this is a bit hugely tragic cause it's set in an AU where Sansa's events in season 5 are actually happening, which I utterly disbelieve and hate. It's based on an idea I had that if she could remember a kiss that never happened she could remember an awful lot of other lovely things if she wanted to. But if you – like me – want to utterly ignore the misery of season 5, don't read this, I'll understand. :-)**

**19.**

The little bird looked out of another window in another tower, another cage, she looked out on the snow falling outside and she remembered.

It was easy, to remember, especially with all the time she had now to do so. It was easy not to see things, she had been teaching herself for years, ever since Joffrey had made her look at her father's head on a spike. Nowadays it was as easy as breathing. She could make herself not see, not hear, not feel. She was getting better and better at that. And it was easy to remember what should have happened.

She remembered the night of the Blackwater the most often. She remembered a kiss and a song, that feeling of slight wooziness and a feeling of being extremely alive. She remembered how she had felt the tears on his face and he had got up and taken her hand, pulling her up with them. She remembered how she had said _yes. _How he had nodded and so much of the tension with which he had come into her room had gone out of him. She could feel the relief that flooded him so strong it stretched to her. She knew she would be safer with him, understood the truth of it, safer than with Ser Dontos, or Stannis or any of them.

"Move quickly" he had told her, "Move quietly and do what I say and maybe we'll get out of here alive".

She had thrown a cloak around herself and followed him out of there like a shadow. She remembered hard, she remembered it all like it was yesterday. She remembered reaching for the candle she had brought with her, how he had shaken his head –

"No" he rasped – "No light, you have to be a shadow little bird, can you do that?"

She could. She could be whatever she was told if she wanted to.

She remembered that slip through the darkness, skirting around the battle all around them, remembered the glow of green in the sky and the smells of burning and blood. She imagined how it must be for him and took a strange strength in knowing she was less scared than he was. She saw too and learned, how scared though he was he did not let a moment of it stop him.

Most of all she remembered getting up on his horse behind him. She remembered being afraid she would hurt him with how entirely he took her weight to pull her up and she clung to his arm as though she was climbing a tree, something she could not hurt. She remembered that fear that she would hurt him and how ridiculous she supposed that was, even at the time.

"Hold on to me" he said, more roughly than ever, and she had not been afraid of that somehow. In truth she had never felt more like a girl in a story than when she had put her arms around him, her fingers barely interlacing in the middle, but she clung on tight and pressed her face into his back. She remembered that most of all;

"Don't look" he had said "Don't look at anything" and she smiled into his back because that was her special talent wasn't it? Not looking, not seeing ,when her eyes were wide open. Instead she remembered the smell of boiled leather crushed up against her face and that intense smell of him that was foul and yet somehow comforting. She remembered feeling patches of armour imprint into her face and how she pressed in closer to keep the riot and roar of battle out of her ears.

She remembered how they flew out of King's Landing. The feel of wind around them as they rode, cooling her burning cheeks. She felt like she had wings and could barely hear the horses hooves against the ground. She remembered a feeling of queer exultant happiness when she realised how much she trusted him. She felt as safe riding out of a battle as she had at home in Winterfell.

_Safe at home in Winterfell. _The thought stung her and almost made her misremember. She forgot the present, pushed it away, dived back into the memory like a cool stream. She wondered that it could feel so sweet when at the time everything was so hot and loud and clamouring. But it did; she was free, free as the bird she could be, spreading her wings and leaving her cage behind. She was a wolf too for once, rushing across the field. She remembered it so well; she was free and safe and rejoicing and – she suspected – perhaps a little bit in love.

Even at the time she could see the flight from King's Landing like a picture in her head, a painting or a tapestry; the knight rescuing the lady from the burning city. The sounds around them were so loud she could laugh out loud to herself and he never heard it.

She smiled as the turned away from the window and just to smile under such circumstances felt so defiant that she smiled again. They could never take this from her. What was it she had said once ? _The truth is either terrible or boring. _She had thought she knew so much back then, when she was only halfway right, she had not known then that was terrible could be boring as well.

People would come, she would switch herself off. It barely mattered. Until she got away, and she _would _get away – there was so much more she could remember. All those days spent travelling, side by side, all the conversations they had had. All the nights spent awkwardly under trees and at roadside inns – awkwardly and then less awkwardly. She had it all to remember still and then – if she had to, there was a whole future to imagine – she stopped herself – to _plan. _She wondered if she was crazy and did not find herself caring.

_I will dwell in memory _she thought, _for now. _She did not even have to wonder if he dwelt there too because after all, he was still here with her whenever she wanted, wherever it was that she wanted to be.

_x_

**Ugh, I hate series 5, just to reassure you all I probably won't write in that stinky AU again, and in my head it IS and AU because Sansa's entire plotline makes no sense as well as being awful. I just did this for catharsis, just to play with an idea really, I'm not sure Sansa would drown in unreality this much really, I just like to think of her as staying hopeful and having something to cheer herself up with – which obviously would be Sandor. :-)**


	20. Chapter 20

**So quite a few people were liking the idea of a sequel to the modern AU chapter, so here, have that old Meeting-at-a-game-whilst-they're-both-going-out-with-other-people chestnut! Because, why not! – Some pure fluff is needed after the last chapter I think! :-)**

**20.**

She was torn between excitement and boredom, interest and shyness. A part of her did not want to be here at all and another had just been waiting to attend her first big game. Margaery had had to pester and pester her way through Sansa's indecisiveness and of course she had eventually won. Nevertheless it felt good, at half time, to be able to run away from the packed - in seats for a while, escaping Margaery's over enthusiastic fishing for compliments on how the cheerleading was going and the fact that Loras was blatantly ignoring her, even after Margaery had convinced her to come as his _date or something _she had put it, though everyone knew that the something meant Loras still wasn't ready to come out about him and Renly, even though the whole school knew and had known for ages.

Sansa sighed into her little plastic cup and wandered half-heartedly over towards the bake sale stand, wondering if there would be lemon cakes. She was wandering so vaguely that she went right into someone. She got as far as –

"I'm so –" and he got as far as –

"Watch where you're –" before looking up and looking down and recognising each other. She tried not to blush, tried to stop her hand going into her hair to push it back nervously; he closed his eyes and wished he hadn't been about to shout at her.

"It's you" she said, uselessly.

"And – you" he countered, more aggressively than he meant to

"Yes – I – I can- be – me" she floundered, _I can be me! _Her brain applauded extremely slowly and she wished she had said something else.

"What are _you_ doing here?" he said.

"I'm –" she frowned at herself, thought better of being defensive about it and came out defensive all the same – "I can be here if I want to. What are _you _doing here?"

"Here with Joffrey" he grumbled quietly.

"Oh –" she frowned again. He looked away; he had to stop staring at the way her forehead crinkled up so prettily, _had _to.

"What's the matter little bird, you look confused."

"I suppose I kind of thought – you didn't like Joffrey".

He normally would never have gone on, but found that he could not bear the idea that she might think otherwise and so –

"I don't –" now he realised _he _was sounding defensive – "But the boy's a whiney piss baby who won't go anywhere without his bodyguard – I got dragged" he finished quickly.

"I did too" she admitted.

"You didn't strike me as a cheerleader" he nodded – "But I saw your friend out there earlier. So who'd you come with?"

Sansa blushed. She could not believe how much she was wishing she was here alone or how her cheeks burned and her gaze fell shy of meeting his eye.

"Loras Tyrell" she mumbled, grimacing. She cringed when he burst into laughter, loudly and roughly; "I _know –" _she started, but it came out in half a whisper, half a whine, and he was not about to listen anyway.

"_Loras Tyrell_?" he hooted – "Loras – Pansy-ass Tyrell? Little Bird you are flying up the wrong bloody tree."

"I _know" _she almost stomped her foot like some petulant medieval lady in a story before she managed to stop herself – "Shut up about it alright? He's only here for Margaery and – and –"

"And because Renly's on the team. It's not a secret Little Bird."

"How did you know, you don't even come here."

He grimaced, mumbling disgustedly;

"My brother's also on the team."

"Really?" He wished she could have given the polite interest a break just this once, but she had to, didn't she? Ruthlessly persistent as though she had a worm caught in her little beak –

"Which one's your brother?"

"Gregor Clegane" he sighed, _it starts. _Her eyes widened;

"The Mountain? Really he's so –"

"Primeval?"

"Impressive – I mean –" she finally saw the look he was giving her and backed down – "No-one can withstand him –" she mumbled.

"_No – one can withstand him" _he echoed "Little Bird, let me tell you a thing."

-x-

She blinked when he had finished, surprised to find her eyes welling up with tears of sympathy. She wished that she could not; she could imagine how rude and unwanted sympathy must be.

"I take it back" she said, hoping it would be enough – "He's not impressive at all. He's _horrible. _I'm so –" she didn't really want to say _sorry, _it was so inadequate, instead she laid a nervous hand on his arm. He froze for a moment almost in panic, hardly knowing what to do about this, and then a cheer rang up from the benches; they both looked, both nodded;

"_Gregor_" they both announced, un-necessarily and with a joined sigh.

"So –" she looked down at the ground, knowing she should probably be getting back, not wanting to go back – "It's my first game" she said, for something to say.

"How's that working out?"

"I don't think I like it."

"I could – we could – I could take you away –"

"Run away with me?" She looked up then, smiling, a light in her eyes that was almost too bright for him. It was like a story she thought, she could be the lady and he could be her knight, as long as she didn't look to close. Then she realised that _that _really was flirting and coloured up again.

"No – but –" he said.

"Yeah – I should –" she mumbled.

"But maybe we could –" she tried again more boldly, clearly looking at him expectantly in the hope that he would get the hint was getting her nowhere – "It's Blackwater Night on Friday" she said decisively – "We could –"

"What the hell is Blackwater Night?"

"_You _know, they throw it every year, down by the river, to celebrate a battle or something that happened years and years ago? There's a bonfire and they light fireworks and…..and you hate fireworks" she ran down. It had been going to be a question but half way through saying it she realised it really didn't have to be.

"Good guess" he nodded, sarcastically – "I really really do. But –" he could see the light flicker in her eyes and was surprised how little he wanted to see it go out – "But if you like we could _not _go together." She laughed;

"How do we _not _go somewhere together?"

He scratched his head;

"Hadn't worked that part out yet but if you don't –"

"No, no I do! Please – I'd like to not go to the fireworks with you. I could – come to the shop at about eight?"

"Okay" He wondered why he felt like looking around desperately for a way to back out; he did not _want _to back out, but it seemed so ridiculous that _this _girl would ask him out that he was almost paralyzed with suspicion and overwhelmed with bewilderment.

"Well I – better get back –" Sansa felt proud of herself and now, on the back of that, terrified – "Margaery will be wondering where I am."

"You do that" he nodded – "Fly off little bird."

"It's _Sansa" _She half sighed, half smiled – "See you Sandor".

Se patted his arm, awkwardly and smiled as she flew away. He stared after her wondering how and that she knew his name and wondering if he would ever be able to move again without falling down, his head was spinning from the disbelief of her. He was not sure he had ever smiled so hard as he did now at watching her move away.

_x_

**So, I need some advice! As you can see this seems to be maybe shaping up into an actual story, because I find myself really wanting to re-write the battle of Blackwater as a first date not quite at a fireworks display….so, do I keep interspersing chapters of this au into these snippets or do I set it up as a new fic? Or both? What are people's thoughts? :-) **


	21. Chapter 21

**I know a lot of you'll be reading/ have read this already, but what the hey, this is the first chapter in a much longer thing I'm writing - that happy ever after AU I mentioned quite a while back. It's called "One Day in an Ever After". Yeah, basically this is just a shameless plug. :-)**

**Sansa**

She woke with first light these days, slow and languorous, yawning like a cat as she stretched in the sheets. It was two years into summer and the gold that spilled over the windowsill was molten and warm. _Soft liquid fire, _she thought, though she would find another way to describe it to her husband.

It was not the first morning into which she smiled as she stretched, slowly half sitting up in preparation for the bolder move of actually sitting up. _I'm Queen of all the North _she thought, chastising herself with a smile – _waking up should not be such a slow process. _

She remembered all those years of sleeping for as long as she could, not waking until she knew she would otherwise be called; Kings Landing, The Eyrie, all of her various prisons. She had slept for as long as she could to pass the time more quickly. Dreams had been better than real life back then. She had started to lose hope that it would ever be otherwise.

And here she was. Years of this life had not made her used to it. She had never started to take it for granted, to assume that nothing bad would happen. She knew she should. If she could not trust in herself to keep herself safe she should surely trust in Sandor. When they argued, half the time it was about this – and every time it was over soon with kisses; she never had enjoyed an argument and he, it seemed, was done with shouting at the world.

She turned her head to look at him asleep and dropped a still heavy head down beside his on the pillow. Her fingers lightly traced his face, from nose to the ear nearest her. He had grumbled at her just the other night that she only slept on the side she did because she still could not really stand to look at the other side of his face. She had almost been infuriated; _after all this time _she thought, _after everything I've said and done _but he had not quite meant it and she had not quite become cross.

She would never forget that day towards the end of winter. Winterfell was still under threat and even though they knew that they were winning she had still not fought off the last of The Bastard's men. They had made one last hurried attempt to take back the castle and somehow she had found herself chased into a corner, on her back on the floor with a group of men laughing at her claim to the North and asking how she'd manage it without her skin.

_It's not fair, _she vividly remembered thinking, childish though it was. In that second she had wondered what she had even been trying to do, how indeed she had ever thought that she could do this – _it's not fair, I got so far! _And then a hot spray of blood had hit her in the face and the first man crumpled like the broken toy of a giant. One by one each man who had threatened her was neatly broken and dropped and she had looked up, struggling back to her feet to see who had rescued her. It was the stranger who had come and offered his services as Winterfell's new kennel master. They had had to get new people for everything in the early days of re-establishing their stake on the castle and so she had said yes without much thought. He was a Brother from the Quiet Isle, he said, and at that time she had not been fussy enough to mind that he was so heavily hooded at all times that she never saw his face.

Still that _voice _– and the size of him – something had pulled at the back of her mind. Just a few days before she had gone to speak at him down at the kennels.

"Do I know you, ser?" He had made a noise that was almost a laugh;

"Surely the Queen in the North does not call a kennel master _Ser?" _It had not helped the niggling feeling.

"You remind me of someone," she had frowned.

He had made a half querying grunting sound, never looking at her –

"Some true knight of yours, no doubt."

"No –" she could feel the frown lines running across her forehead – "No knight – but true –" she sighed, remembering – "Truer than anyone I ever met". Her eyes went misty and when she looked back at him he looked quickly away from her, not to show that he had been watching or listening to the faraway dreaminess that had crept into her voice – "But he died," she finished heavily, wondering why it still hurt her heart to say so. She shook her head, shaking off the dream she had never quite been able to fully form anyway – "Good day to you."

She had felt him watching her as she walked away and the feeling that she was missing something had not left her.

And now he stood over her, reaching out his hand and pulling her to her feet and if the deja vu was not enough she heard him rasp softly –

"You're alright now, little bird." Her eyes went wide as she stood up beside him and she stared at him as though she had seen a ghost and it seemed to her she might have done –

"_Sandor?" _she whispered – "That's _impossible."_

"Not impossible little bird," he returned, letting her reach and slip her fingers beneath the hood of his cloak and push it back – "Just –" he did not know what else to say, overwhelmed at hearing her say his name like that, at having her _this _delighted to see him. Her face broke into a smile like a burst of sunlight on the snow and she reached to touch the burned side of his face as if that more than anything convinced her he was real.

And she, unable to stop herself, when she had spent so long holding herself back from everyone and everything had thrown her arms around him as much as they would reach, standing on tiptoe to cover his face with kisses. It had been an easier step than she could have ever imagined between that moment and marriage.

And now, lying in bed beside him, more convinced than she had once imagined she could be that he really would always be the one to keep her safe, she kissed his face again. It made her smile how at this angle he looked undamaged – beautiful even – and she never stopped wanting to trace the lines of him in fascination. Then at some point he would always turn over and she would find the poor scarred side of his face just as beautiful and kiss that twice as much.

When she took a moment to blink between kisses she giggled to see that he was squinting at her from one eye;

"Little bird –" he growled softly, and she thought he was going to say something sweet and affectionate but all that followed was "It's too fucking early to have you pecking at my face."

She kissed him lightly again, quickly, more like a peck than ever.

"The sun's up and it's a beautiful day!" she beamed, all the more cheerfully because she knew it would annoy him. He closed his eyes in pain;

"Stop your bloody chirping already!" She grinned in the comfort of this early morning routine, all the familiar words that meant love and happiness in their language.

"It's a beautiful day and there's a dragon at the window!" she added. He followed where she was looking and swore violently. The dragon had one claw curled around the window ledge, scales glistening black and rainbow in the early morning light. It snaked its head just a little inside when Sansa smiled at it and she could have sworn it was smiling benignly at them.

Sandor swore violently again.

"Oh what's wrong?" she laughed – "It's only Bran."

_x_


	22. Chapter 22

**I read this prompt on tumblr from ****_Dammitsandor _****and had to run a little with it. ****J**

**_"Sandor thinking he's alone in the theatre, building set pieces, until he hears someone singing. He leaves the room to investigate and finds Sansa rehearsing her part_**

**_Bonus points if Sansa's rehearsing for the role of belle in a beauty and the beast musical."_**

**21.**

He heard a lot of people say that the theatre after hours was creepy. It was not supposed to be somewhere people wanted to be. And of course, there were all the usual stories about it being haunted too. He didn't care. He liked the dark, and the echoes, and most of all the lack of company. Liked having someone chuck him the keys and ask him just to close up when he was done.

Tonight he was behind the backdrop, working on the second backdrop; the castle was done and now he just had a village to create. It was the closest he came to happiness, working alone like this. The theatre could be scary by day and not because of any ghosts. Theatre people were dramatic, and he could not have been more tired of people reacting to the sight of him with all their obvious, badly acted attempts at respectively sympathy, muted horror, and dramatically trying to make it look as though they were not looking at him, which was probably the worst.

Plus this god-damned show itself- and if he had one more person ask him why he didn't try out for male lead he was likely to stab somebody. It was a good thing the only swords available were prop swords. _Beauty and the Beast _was the bane of his bloody life and he would be glad when it was all over.

There was a long way to go though; rehearsals had only just started.

He was sat on the floor, glaring at a join in the wood, when he heard light feet patter on the boards of the stage. They sounded thunderous in the echoing quiet.

"Hello?" came a voice, wavering and unsure – "Is there anyone there?"

He was not sure why he did not come out – other than that he just hoped he could sit tight and they would go away. Actresses were the worst, and this girl sounded like an actress. Probably a chorus girl who was hoping she had locked herself in the building, desperate to frighten herself later, and who had not actually tried the door before getting herself into a lovely panic. He sat very quietly in the hope that he would hear her retreat. He heard the thumps and a sort of swishing sound as her feet moved across the stage, but she did not go away. What was she _doing _out there? He groaned; probably dancing about the stage, imagining herself a diva. He wished she _was _the diva; that girl Margaery that they had cast for Belle was _terrible. _

The footsteps stopped. In the near dark and the quiet he could hear her breathing. She giggled nervously, took a deep breath and started to sing.

He knew the song; he had spent too much time lurking round the theatre not to know all the usual audition pieces and then some more. It wasn't _Beauty and the Beast _and that was something of a relief – but it was from _Phantom of the Opera _which, as far as he was concerned was just as bad, if not worse. It was _Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again – _a song he had heard attempted so often and usually so badly that there was no room in him to like it and for the first few lines he thought this was going to be no exception. Her voice wavered tremulously in the vast space, getting eaten up by the air and the silent auditorium where the red velvet seats crouched waiting with eyes glinting to swallow up her words.

He almost groaned. He hated _Beauty and the Beast, Phantom, Hunchback of Notre – fucking – Dame. _All those god-damn cliché's that made people side eye him as though it were a joke he should be in on. It wasn't romantic and it wasn't cute; beautiful people romanticising ugliness, the fuck did they know? They gushed about those stories whilst they looked at him with all the doe – eyed romanticism normally reserved for spiders. Fuck them.

Her voice almost fell apart on _shattered – _he was about to stifle a groan again before she surged into the next line and he opened his tired eyes with a sudden jerk of surprise. Her voice took flight with the song; he could hear it rise up like an orchestra, sailing out over the stall and up the gallery, running around the boxes, fluting and dipping and then diving, whispering around the wings to where he sat listening, suddenly entranced.

He knew her now, the little understudy for Belle, _Sansa _his mind dredged up from somewhere, _Sansa Stark _– he wondered if it was real or a stage name, it sounded so good. He could picture her now; pretty, with eyes like the sky and hair like autumn leaves. He wondered where the poetry came from; wasn't like him at all. She had been swishing because she was probably wearing a long skirt that looked like she had made it herself. He had been mildly irate when she was only made understudy. Also she was nice; or at any rate she tried at least to smile at him and never giggled behind his back like most of them.

He had never heard her sing like this though; her voice was like a breeze, like birdsong, he was bad at similes – it was like, though this was silly and he did not know where it came from – her voice was like forgiveness; as though her singing could wash out all the crap that built up inside his head. Her singing took his heart and squeezed it, not only the sweetness of her voice but the emotion; he could have sworn when she got to _fighting back tears _that she really was.

He found himself creeping to the gap in the curtains to watch her. She was like a ghost in the strange light; a lovely, colourful ghost. Her hands trembled nervously like little birds themselves and her voice shook again at the end, but this time it just added to it. She blinked rapidly as though coming out of a trance and she looked down at the stage, embarrassed. At which point, _obviously _– this time he did not manage to groan quietly – he dropped the hammer he had been glaring at when she came in.

She whipped around in terror;

"Who's there?" she called and he could see her eyes wide in the gloom. That small part of his brain in which resided an extremely childish sense of humour fought to whisper out "It is I, the phantom of the opera," but he restrained himself and instead shuffled, cringing, out from behind the backdrop.

"Sir – you –" she stammered, colouring up red – "You should have made your presence known."

"Don't _sir _me girl, I'm just the stage hand."

She huffed with indignation;

"You – you – you were there! All the time – and I – oh-" she looked like she was almost going to cry with embarrassment and, not for the first time, he felt like the most miserable jerk on the planet.

"I –" he did not know what he was going to say to try and make it better and it was almost to his relief that she flared quickly into anger –

"You …you _creep!" _she sounded, adorably, like she would have liked to swear but that it just did not come naturally to her – "Do you do this to all the girls –"

"Gods no! I – just – you –" He closed his eyes in horror, screwing his whole face up in the grimace. She made a noise somewhere between _ugh _and a screech.

"I never – you were – and I just –" he stammered out several attempts at an explanation that made this look better, all of them failing until – "You were really good," he tried.

"That's not – really?" She blinked, going from anger to curiosity in the space of seconds.

"It was –" he could not look at her, all the more so for noticing that she was no longer struggling to look at him – "Beautiful. Really – it sounded like – you really felt it."

Then she looked away and only then did he remember that the song was about a girl losing her father and he had just told her she sang like she really felt it and…..shit. He kicked himself internally and repeatedly with the many kicking feet of his brain.

For a moment she looked back at him and there were tears swimming in her eyes. She bit her lip and then, to his absolute relief did not say what she might have said to confirm his suspicion. Instead she bit it back and nodded –

"Thank you –" she said.

"You should have got the part".

"Do you think so?" It was lovely to see her smile. He half smiled himself, hoping it did not just look like a twitch of the lips. He had scared her enough.

"Well Margaery kind of….she's your friend?"

"Yeah, but you can say _sucks _if you want. It's alright, maybe she'll get that porridge plague she was going on about and I could stand in."

"Porridge plague?"

She shook her head, shyly, laughed –

"It's a joke. Anyway, I should be going home, I –"

"I could walk you – it's – dark." He swallowed, not quite able to believe he had dared offer.

"We-ll –" she smiled harder – "I suppose it's the least you could do for creeping on me in the wings."

He wondered if, by the time she was nearly home, he might dare to take her hand. He looked at her smiling face and wondered if she was going to make the comment they all made, something like – _If I could play Belle maybe you could play my lead_. She did not say it, but for the first time, he found himself wishing that she would.

_x_

**Argh! Another modern AU that's now whispering me to write more for it! Maybe Sandor really could somehow end up playing Beast to Sansa's Belle? In theory I hate AU's….why do they keep talking to me? :-D**


	23. Chapter 23

**Erm so I can't believe I'm saying this but: My Little Pony AU! Y'know those stupid late night discussions – the kind that lead to working out what all of the asoi&amp;f characters would have as a cutie mark? So that happened and then – uh – this happened. All I can do is apologise. This is literally the silliest thing I ever wrote. :-)**

**22.**

It sometimes seemed to Sansa as though she had spent her entire adolescence wondering what her cutie mark was going to be. She was _furious _when Arya got hers so young; she had been so convinced Arya would give her grief about it that she and Jeyne had set up their Cutie Mark Crusader's club early, picking on Arya before she could start on them.

Arya's mark was so _cool _as well, a dire wolf with its face half in shadow. All of the Starks got dire wolves in some form or other, even her half-brother Jon had the pure white wolf silhouette. Even _Theon Greyjoy _had one – much to her chagrin. He was always trying to hide it with his tail, painfully ashamed that he had not got anything with the typical underwater theme of the Greyjoy family. It was not quite a dire wolf but he still had a wolf howling at the moon. She remembered the confused look on his face when Jon and Rob had ridden him around the courtyard on their backs chanting "One of us! One of us!" when his cutie mark appeared. He looked both awkwardly pleased and furious all at once.

Her mother kept telling her not to worry, that it was not a bad thing to wait longer for her mark to appear, but what did she know? She had a lovely silver and red fish on her flank for house Tully. Sansa dreamed of getting something so pretty. Above all, she knew that she would get something beautiful, something delicate, a wolf like Lady, graceful and elegant. She was so ashamed when the Lannisters arrived, afraid of what Joffrey would say if he saw her; if he would sneer _blank flank _behind her back like he did to his own younger siblings. He was so proud of his snarling black lion, similar to his mother's, only hers was gold.

Cersei was the most beautiful pony Sansa had ever seen, her coat glistened almost ruby red in the sun and her mane and tail were a stream of gold. She looked so impressive next to her brother too; he was almost identical except his lion was lying down. She was mortified when the queen asked her outright if her cutie mark had appeared yet and she had to say no in front of everyone.

In the end when it did appear, she wished it hadn't. The night Lady died she had cried herself to sleep, and when she had woken up in the morning there it was. She almost screamed when she saw it: a great, black, snarling dog's head. And not even a wolf, which at least would have made sense, a dog and not even an elegant one. She had thought it was a horrible joke of Arya's at first and spent hours trying to scrub it off. Then she had cried until her eyes ached. She spent the rest of the journey to Stallion's Landing miserable and mortified, tail held over the hideous mark.

She wondered if it was punishment for not standing up for Arya; she could only assume that it was. Eventually Septa Mordane noticed, though Sansa refused to let any pony else see it and she found her voice growing rough from the number of times she had to cry at her to shut up about it. Her Septa tried to comfort her by pointing out that it looked more like a helmet in the shape of a head than just a disembodied head, the same – she pointed out unhelpfully – as Robb had. It did not help; Sansa had only ever met one pony who wore a helmet like that and there was surely no point of comparison between them – was there?

_x_

For Sandor, getting his cutie mark had been one more awful thing in a line of awful things. He was already disfigured, he had thought when he saw it – he didn't need this. One more thing for Gregor to be vile about; Gregor with the perfect black dogs of house Clegane rippling across a golden flank.

Sandor had almost dared to be hopeful about getting his – hopeful that the inevitably fierce nature of his cutie mark would make other ponies think twice; maybe it could even make Gregor think twice about taking him on. Maybe it would make his family see something in him of value for once.

It was a little bird.

It was a little fucking bird.

There was not even the slightest moment of any day in which he did not keep it hidden; either with his tail or under some old battered armour. The shining kind was not for him.

But then that night on the stair; he had been drunk and dishevelled and he knew that she had seen it when she crashed into him on the steps. But she had been so flustered he had caught a glimpse of hers as well. He squinted at it before she noticed, blushed and hid it with a twitch of her tail – it looked oddly familiar. In truth it was the cutie mark _he _should have had. Had the two of them got each other's? What the hell was this? Neither of them could stop blushing as he growled at her and she chirped back at him.

_Little bird, _he had called her – it hit him afterwards like a bucket of ice cold water. It all made sense, suddenly, all of it made sense. He wished it did not.

-x-

It was not until years later, when they were living together happily in Ponyfell, that they both began to wear their cutie marks with pride. Because love, as well as friendship, was magic and they had learnt that beauty could be found where you least expected it and in the most unlikely of things. In them, and in the reformation of their family, the elements of harmony were combined once more and Equesteros was at peace.

_x_

**I promise never to write anything this silly again? Normal service will be resumed in the next chapter….probably. All I can think is I watched too much mlp recently! I now have far too many ideas about this – like how if the Apple family all have apple themed cutie marks obviously families of Westeros would all have their house theme – my favourite is the idea of the Greyjoys all having cute little krakens ad mermaids and stuff! and how all the Tyrells get sick of boring old roses except Lady Olenna who got a circle of thorns. I need help. :-P**

**This just in: my beta is currently working on illustrating this! Oh dear lord, yes! Sadly I can't get anything further out of them cause they're rolling around on the floor yelling "EQUESTEROS!" – I'll – uh –keep yous posted!**


	24. Chapter 24

**So this is set in King's Landing times but is kinda AU-ish cause it contains events that clearly never happened in canon. :-)**

**24.**

She lay awake in bed, listening to the rain patter off the stone outside. The last few days had been so hot; a last frenzied burst of summer desperately riding on the back of autumn; the last hot days everyone imagined they would see for a long time. They had all sweated the days out in heavy lethargy, the ladies only able to imagine how much worse it must be for the men in armour. Sansa had had to dig out the lightest of her summer silks; the ones she had packed away weeks ago as the weather turned its face more and more surely towards winter.

She missed the old summer, what she supposed she thought of now as _real _summer. Warm but not awful like this. The kind of day a girl could sit out beneath a tree, angling herself to make the prettiest picture she could. Running through the woods with Jeyne, lacing flowers through each other's hair. Picking wildflowers and sorting them into neat bouquets and pretty garlands which Arya would doubtless run through and destroy. Chasing her in an anger she recognised now as the carefree kind, pushing her in the river more than likely until they all ended up wet and shouting and happy. It was not like that now. She had thought she was glad to be growing up, that this new phase of her life would be even more sweet and exciting than the last.

But nothing was as she had imagined it, and this had been an oppressive heat, thick and wearying, and she lay awake listening to the rain in a smiling haze of relief. She was so tired – the last few days had been too hot to sleep well through – but now she could not sleep from the sound of the rain and the sky outside rapidly becoming more exciting.

When the first rumble of thunder rippled up against the castle walls she fought back a sudden crazy instinct to laugh. The misery of the heat had suited life in King's Landing and the thunderstorm suggested a freedom, a wild kind of joy she thought she had stopped believing in. It was almost like the joy of running down that path to the stream, crushing flowers into the dust – except that it was not. It was a darker, more troubling joy that thrilled her nonetheless. She went to the window to look out – reached her arm out to catch the raindrops. Lightning shook nearby, crashing the sky up into silver and blue and she pulled her arm back in quickly as though she could have been hit.

Smiling to herself as though in a secret shared between her and the storm she threw a robe on over her nightgown and crept out. Nobody would be about in this weather at this hour; she still caught herself supposing sometimes that she was the first person ever to do a thing or think a thing, young enough to be so instinctively conceited and old enough to call herself out on it. Nobody else had ever been poised on the brink of adulthood like she had; so torn in their feelings and unaware of themselves. She ran up the tower steps and out onto the roof, looking up as she neared the top to see the rain sleet down silver and bright into her face as though some wizard had waved a wand and these were the sparks coming down from his spell.

She turned her face into the rain like a flower towards the sun. She tilted her head back and stretched up her arms to welcome the rain, to play with the storm. It made her feel huge and wild with importance.

"Shouldn't you be curled up in your bed trembling, little bird?"

She nearly jumped out of her rain soaked skin; she had been so sure she would be alone up here she had not even really looked around. She dropped her arms and spun round fast. She wondered why Sandor Clegane was always in the places she went to be alone in and she wondered at herself for not being immediately unhappy about it.

"You – you – Ser you should have –" she spluttered.

"_I should have made my presence known –" _he recited for her – "Sing me another one little bird, that one's getting old and I'm not –" he shook his head and gave up, the expression of _why do I even bother _on his face so comical that Sansa almost giggled. He shook his head at her with a sigh –

"Strangely enough, I wasn't prepared for little birds to come up here to fly in a thunderstorm, so if you're looking for an apology girl, you can piss on it." This time he half smiled at the look of affronted disgust that passed over that pretty face.

"I wasn't – ugh – I – you're so –" she stopped herself before she said _vulgar, rude _or _hateful – _all of the options that trembled on her lips. He was looking at her archly with a smirk that portended rudeness; a look which changed to something much more intent when she stuck out the tip pf her tongue to lick the raindrops from her lip. She was soaked through now, mercifully cool and alive, and the taste of the rain was sweet and salt and herbal on her tongue.

"You're drenched," he said.

"Yes," she said, and then – it came out like a riposte though she did not mean it that way – "It's raining."

"Come on," he sighed – "I'll take you back to your room." He took a step towards her, took a hold of her arm, not ungently. She did not step away but made no move to let herself be led away either.

"I don't want to go back," she said, stubbornly. There were so few people in King's Landing she would dare be like this with; strange that this man was one of them. A spear of lightning streaked the sky, breaking it apart close over their heads. He could feel her shiver in delight and she grinned to herself. When she looked up she could see that he was grinning too.

"You're not –" he stopped and all the possibilities hung there between them – _normal, like other girls, predictable – _for a moment he almost told her she was not quite the stupid little bird he had initially taken her for, that when he looked at her he could see dark wings colour the sky before sweeping him away into spring, that when she spoke he could hear a she – wolf howl. He could not say these things and so he finished lamely with – "Normal".

Maybe she had heard his thoughts though, for a moment her eyes had narrowed; seemed almost yellow in the smoky rain soaked light, her ears pricked up to hear his very thoughts. But she just made a little sound, almost a laugh;

"No," she smiled, and with the madness of the storm upon her and inside her she stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. For a moment he stopped breathing, and stared at her for too long, wondering what the hell had just happened.

And she, she was just flying through the rain, chasing the storm on raven wings. She was running to the river and the flowers were crushing beneath her feet pink and blue and yellow, petals running together, a rainbow of paint breaking up in the autumn rain.

And she was a winged wolf, flying over the storm.

_x_

**I'm toying with giving this a second half – aging Sansa up and going nsfw on it? Or doing something connected but set quite a few years later since I don't really headcanon anything like that having happened in KL days? But I also kinda like it as it stands – what do people think?**


	25. Chapter 25

**I did it, I did a porn chapter in a thunderstorm – many years later though when they're married and living in Winterfell.**

**24.**

Spring brings with it all the sweetness and promise of summer – and storms. He finds her on the battlements where the lightning split the sky. She has her face turned into the rain, arms outstretched as though she is conducting the thunder. Or she is flying through it. He remembers that.

So much has happened since then, but in the storm, up high with the smell of rain and stone and the cindery scent of thunder he remembers as though it was yesterday.

He had gone up the tower to feel the thunder; to bask in the storm, and yes, to be alone. That part at least was ruined when she appeared. He supposed he should have alerted her to his presence straight away – like she told him he should have done – but for some reason he had heard her foot on the stair – and yes, the largest part of him had known that it was her – and he had backed away into a shadow as though she frightened him. He had felt like such an idiot – he still felt like an idiot about it in retrospect – but she _had _frightened him. There was an urge to be himself around her – and a version of himself he thought had died – and a tendency to start telling her all the things he told no-one, a symptom of the sickness it often felt that she was causing him.

He understands it now; he knows that he had loved her, but he supposed that even if he had been able to go back and let himself know that it would not have made him feel better, not the person that he was back then. The Hound. The Hound had always been a bit of a lie; she had told him since that in truth he was always Sandor in her head, told him how the thought of his name made her blush to herself even as the child she had been then.

She is no child now and, more than that, now she is – he did not like to say _his, _though he knows she would not have objected, and it was a good thing to know.

She does not jump when he appears behind her now. She does not even seem surprised; she always seems to know when he is on his way to her. She turns to him and her smile is wild and wide and there is lightning crackling in her eyes and before he even really has time to be in awe of her she stands up on tiptoe and kisses him.

Not like she had kissed him before; he remembered that sweet little kiss and tortured himself for weeks and more with wondering what it meant. Indeed he was not sure he had ever lost the feel of her lips against his face. This is not like that; this is the kiss he had dreamed about later, full of all the wildness in her eyes, the passion in her being. She kisses him now like a wolf, where before she had kissed like a bird. She is warm and drenched, slippery and cold too with rain on her skin and her hands are pulling him to her, clasping at his shirt and winding in his hair and he wants her almost more than he can bear and she wants it that way and he knows that, too.

He had wanted her back then as well, though it shamed him to admit it. Even after he had told her and she had nodded and told him, realising that it was true for the first time only as she told him, that she had wanted him as well, young though she had been and unsure exactly what it was that she was wanting. But the uncertainty has long fled her now and only the wanting remains and her hand is on his cock in perfect certainty; her little fingers working his laces with a skill that he wonders at, never sure, every time she does this, where she had picked it up. In truth she is not sure herself.

He is rock hard beneath her hands, it is impossible not to be, and she presses herself back against the wall so that he can hold her to it and push into her with no further ado. She is impatient and needy, eyes alternately wide and closed as her head rolls and leans and nuzzles at his shoulder and he kisses her wet hair as he thrusts into her, ramming her into the wall like she wants, like he wants. It had not even been his intention in coming to find her in the storm, but he was more than ready and she whimpers as though she has been waiting a lifetime.

She is so overpowering to all his senses it is almost hard to breathe; he can hear the cries that she does not try to keep down hurling out against the sounds of rain and storm, hear the ragged little breaths in between that undo him almost as much if not more. He can feel every curve of her beneath the thin shift she had clearly put on just to get soaked in. She is soaked in every possible way and her body shakes and shudders to each rumble of the thunder. She is nothing like he had ever imagined her, and he must have imagined her about a thousand times at least – but the reality of her is a wonderful world away from what even his strangest dreams would allow.

Towards the end she tenses, quietening all of her ecstasy down into a fierce whispering _yesyesyeyeyyes – _her fingernails dig into his shoulder and she comes shrieking into a silvery crash of lightning. The sky dances with her and the violence and delight of it surprises him into coming with her, voiceless with pleasure when she has stolen all the sound.

Seconds later, with the storm receding, she smiles at him with sleepy eyes, so innocent and sweet it is hard to put all the sides of her together into one coherent picture that works. But she is all that she is, whether he can fully believe it or not.

-x-

The next morning at breakfast sees Arya positively egging the children on as they moan about the storm and the rain. It had just been starting to get nice, the sun was coming out, it was _spring _for fuck's sake, what was the weather up to. Arya is the loudest complainer of course and Sandor is just on the verge of shouting at her under the guise of educating her in how weather works, when Sansa very quietly smiles and says –

"Oh I don't know, I quite like the storms."

And she turns to him ever so slightly and smiles and it is all that it takes for him to choke on his breakfast as the glint in her eye kills him all over again.

_x_

**I've realised since starting these ficlets that I 100% don't ship these two as having any kind of sex until after she's grown up and he's got his head sorted out – and even then I find them so sweet that writing it now makes me blush a little! I hope this chapter didn't suffer too much on this account! :-)**


	26. Chapter 26

**Somebody on tumblr was talking about Sansa giving Sandor his cloak back after the first time he gave her it. I'm sorry, I don't know who you are to thank you for the idea but thank you! This happened, sort of a companion piece to the one with Sansa and Sandor's cloak. A wee bit nsfw.**

**25.**

She was reluctant to give it back. In the end it was only three days later that she got up the courage to do so. She wondered why he did not come pestering her for it. Surely a white cloak was more important to a member of the Kings guard than – just about anything. She could not see that it was anything other than a badge of great honour. She had seen how Ser Meryn and Ser Boros guarded theirs so jealously. But Sandor Clegane was not like other men – he had given her his cloak in a heartbeat, not caring that she would probably get blood on it. And he was not – as he kept reminding her – even a knight like they were. It was a puzzle she never could get her head around.

And she had to admit she had clung to the cloak over those short days, taking more comfort from its warmth and softness than she supposed had ever been intended in the offering. She hoped beyond hope that he would not guess from its crumpled state how she had taken it to bed with her like a baby with a blanket.

And then she did not know what she should say. Did she simply hand it over with a _Thank you? _Thank you was not enough, in her heart, for what she felt. A thank you for covering her, for taking away her shame – but there was more too – a thank you that he alone had cared enough, the knowledge that he had not hit her when Joffrey had asked. She had seen him, pretending not to hear, and she had heard when he tried to tell them to stop. She knew too that he had looked away when everyone else stared at her nakedness. She was more grateful than _thank you _could express but she knew she could not say it. She knew too that behind the _thank you _was the knowledge –_ you saw me beaten and crying and naked, how you must despise me! _She did not want to meet anyone's eye let alone someone who had had the decency to look away.

She realised she had wrapped up all her sense of having been saved in Sandor and that this was horribly unfair to Tyrion. She knew it but could not change it.

She shook the cloak out for hours, pressed out the wrinkles as much as she could, tried to wash out the blood. She was, she realised, intensely inept at washing anything out of clothing. The dress Arya had destroyed with her orange had been unwearable after; she was sure it should not have been so difficult.

In the end she was at least saved the difficulty of finding him; she bumped into him coming out of her room with the cloak folded neatly across her arm.

"I was –" she began.

"Are you done with that?" he nodded, slightly rudely, at the cloak.

"I was just coming to find you – to say –" all that thinking and she had not worked out what she was going to say.

"About bloody time," he grunted and took the cloak from her fingers that had suddenly become so limp and useless.

And that was it; that was the whole of the conversation.

If Sansa went away from the exchange unsatisfied, Sandor figured she got off lightly considering the way he was cursing himself. As usual he had meant to do that better; he had not meant to be rude to her. He had also spent the last two days wondering whether he should wait for her to find him or go to her to ask for it back. He had not even thought of this tangle of awkwardness when he gave her it. He had been moving to take it off before Tyrion even spoke. Now, as usual, he wished he had done this differently.

It was not until later, when he went, reluctantly to put the cloak on again, that he realised it smelled different. He wanted to wear it even less than before anyway, could not stop reminding himself of what he had let them do to her. He didn't deserve this fucking cloak, didn't deserve a damn thing. And now he could smell her trapped within the fabric and the way that confused him made him feel even worse.

He never imagined that she had slept with it, or how close she had snuggled in, but it was impossible to forget that it had been against her naked skin. Impossible as it was to forget the gentle perfumed smell of her he felt sick, fingers trembling to think of her so closely.

Later he could not stop himself burying his face into the fabric, drinking her in, wild flowers and sweat and the crisp winter lemon smell of her hair. The fact that it _should not _did not stop it hardening his cock, did not stop him thinking of her as he took it in his hand. Burying his face in her hair, cooling his lust with her skin against his. She was so soft, so sweet, so beautiful; he came close to tears from wanting her, knowing he should not, that it was impossible. Little bird would be horrified to know what he thought, let alone what he was doing with the thought.

He could have made it easier, he supposed. He could have just had the cloak washed. And washed again until all hint of her scent was gone from it. Even then he knew he would have smelled her there even if she was not. He was a dog after all and it was the best he could hope for that she would even see him as that and not the monster he knew she saw. He could not blame her; he saw it too, well enough. She would never come with his name on her lips as he did whispering hers, face buried in the smell of her. It was stupid to even imagine it. He imagined it plenty all the same.

He did not have the cloak washed.

_x_

**I need to write more Sansan – throw ideas at me people! :-)**


	27. Chapter 27

**Okay, this one is based on a beautiful idea from ****_SassyEggs _****(thank you so much for the fun I had with this!) – to do a one shot based on the ****_Buffy_**** episode "Tabula Rasa". For those of you that don't know the premise was that a magic spell for forgetting backfired and a group of friends woke up from a mysterious passing out in a room together not knowing who any of them were. I've set this just after my earlier one shot in which Sansa was mourning Lady and Sandor was awkwardly in the same place doing the same. ****_So – _****this is set in the Inn on the King's Road just after Season 1 Episode 2!**

**Tabula Rasa**

"Girl." Sansa turned, almost startled, to see Sandor still behind her; she did not realise he had followed her back into the inn – "You cold? You're shivering".

In truth, she was still crying over Lady, but she had been crying so long and so solidly that she had grown silent with it. She made a non – committal noise and felt him sigh behind her;

"Here". Before she knew it, his cloak was around her shoulders, and it said a great deal for how sad she was still feeling that she did not object immediately to the horrible thing, and instead took comfort from the gesture and pulled it round herself. Still not speaking to Arya or her father, still hating Joffrey and Cersei, it was the closest she could come to a hug.

They were all there, when she went in; Sandor Clegane ducking under the doorframe behind her, Arya sat with their father in one corner, Cersei and Jaime in another with Joffrey nearby, nobody else still around at this hour, King Robert having long since been taken off to bed drunk and furtive. He went straight to Joffrey's side and she went and sat by the fire away from them all. She poked disconsolately at the hearth while they all sat around in a silence that no amount of warmth could chill. It smelled nice, Sansa thought, like someone had been burning flowers here; she felt like she should recognise the flower but it hung just off the tip of her mind, forgotten. She yawned, she felt so sleepy, so strange all of a sudden.

-x-

She woke up groggily, the fire spitting at her. The lights had burned low and she could hardly see; she threw another log on the fire to revive it and give them more light, and looked around her, wondering where she was. It was an inn of some sorts, and as she wondered how she had come to be there, it occurred to her with a horrible sinking lurch that she had no idea who she even was. She reached for her name and found nothing. As the flame flickered back into life in the hearth she looked around her and saw that there were other people here, yawning, stretching and frowning. She started to hear mumbles of – _hey! _and _what? _and _how in the seven hells? _A girl with dark hair was the first to spot her over by the fire and called out –

"Hey – who are you?"

"I –" they'd think she was crazy but it was all she could say – "I know this sounds strange but –"

"You don't know, do you?" a blonde boy said accusingly – "What have you done?"

"I didn't do anything – I – why –" she started to get afraid – "Who are all of you?"

"I don't know either," the other girl admitted.

"Nor I," the man next to her said.

"None of us know," said a lady, coming over from another table with a man beside her who looked so like her they could only be related.

"The fuck is this horse shit?" grumbled another man lifting his head up from the table. She gasped to see his face; it was terrifying in the firelight, one half completely burned and scarred.

"The fuck you looking at?" he growled at her.

"Oh!" she gasped, she realised she did not even know what she looked like and felt bad for looking at him the way she must have done. One by one they all started looking at themselves, the scarred man staring at himself in horror, even as she had stared. Everyone was talking at once, arguing screaming, the blonde boy finally yelling over them all –

"I demand to be told what is going on!"

"Now let's all calm down," said the first man who had spoken – "Do any of us know who we are?"

They established that they didn't.

"I know who you are though," the blonde man said – "Look – you're wearing the badge of warden of the north – you're Ned Stark".

Ned frowned, but accepted this, the blonde lady _harrumphed _genteelly –

"I wondered who'd died and put you in charge."

"I think –" the girl said slowly, looking at the necklace she was wearing – "I think I'm a Lannister – look". They peered in to see the lion head engraved on her pendant – "Oh, you have one the same!"

The lady looked and saw that she was right –

"You must be my mother!" she smiled, glad to have sorted something out.

"Then I must be your father!" The other man joined in.

"Oh please!" The scarred man added – "Look at you two – you're clearly brother and sister and unless something fucking awful is going on –"

"That's disgusting," the Lady said, though the girl noticed that her brother just shrugged.

"Well anyway, we need names!" The dark haired girl complained – "I thought I might be Cat."

She and the other girl stared at each other realising they had both said this last part together.

"I said it first!"

"No you didn't, I did!"

"Did not,"

"I'm Cat!"

"No _I'm _Cat!"

"I feel like a Cat – you're just – you're smelly!"

"Fine!" the older girl sulked – "You be Cat, it's a stupid name anyway, I'll be – Alayne."

"Pfft" Cat snorted – "_That's _stupid."

"You're stupid!"

They looked at each other for a long moment –

"Do you think –" Alayne bean – "We could be –"

"Sisters?" Cat finished – "I still don't like you."

"You two are sisters alright," Ned sighed – "And from the feeling of some gently familiar irritation I'm thinking I'm your father."

"Urgh!" The Lady said – "That means we're – no! No we are not! I don't like you – and – and I think I'm kinda gay."

"It makes sense," Ned shrugged – "I'm a Stark, you're clearly a Lannister and look – I have a wedding ring and so do you – and nobody else does in this room."

"What's my name then?" She folded her arms and stared at him challengingly.

"I don't know – what do you –"

"Joan," she said firmly – "I feel like a Joan".

Her brother snorted –

"_Joan," _he said, implying all the insult he could in tone alone.

"Well what's your name then?"

"Maybe you should pick me one, sister dear".

"Fine – you can be – Pod."

"_Pod?"_

"You look like a Pod – Podrick Lannister."

"I must have a name!" The boy announced, looking peeved that nobody was paying him attention – "Something mighty – epic – like me."

"You have lions on your cloak," Joan looked at him thoughtfully – "And you certainly feel like my son – you should have a fine upstanding Lannister name –"

"Jaime!" He announced proudly – "Jaime Lannister – that sounds good!"

"Gods damn it!" Pod complained – "_I _want to be Jaime Lannister!"

"What about you?" Alayne asked the man in the corner, aware that he was being left out. He just shrugged.

"I dunno – I feel maybe it's – Gregor. And I maybe hate it. But –" he shrugged – "Gregor".

"Well that's something" Ned nodded – "We all have names now –"

"What happened to your face?" Cat butted in, staring at Gregor right up close.

"That's _rude!" _Alayne cried. Gregor just shrugged and grinned a little –

"Guess I'm a fighter, girl. Reckon I got this doing something heroic. I'm probably a knight, saving a girl from a burning building perhaps? Could have been anything."

Cat snorted. Alayne looked a little impressed.

"Wait!" Jaime wailed "They can't be my sisters! I don't _want _them for sisters! Look!" he showed them all his arm – "Something bit me! It was probably her!" he pointed at Cat who snorted –

"I _could _bite your arm."

"Yeah," Pod rolled his eyes – "They're _definitely _your sisters. Be nice and – uh – don't sleep with them. Sleeping with your sisters is _bad."_

Joan looked at him oddly in the awkward silence that followed this announcement.

"Does anyone know whose cloak I'm wearing?" Alayne said eventually – "I mean it's clearly not mine – it's – a man's –"

"Gregor doesn't have his," Ned observed. Alayne took the cloak off and gave it to him, it fit perfectly, which, given the man's size made it obvious to her –

"I think we're engaged!" she announced, she went over to Gregor, instantly cuddling in and putting her head on his shoulder. She felt safe there, happy; it just affirmed their engagement in her mind.

"You're my fiancé!" she announced. He smiled and nodded – it felt right, more right than anything else this day.

"Fiance!" Cat yelled – "Gross! And he's old enough to be your father!"

"Now – uh – Cat –" Ned broke in – "I'm sure Gregor here is an excellent match for my daughter. I would not have allowed it otherwise – don't roll your eyes at me, woman!" he snapped at Joan.

"Don't be so horrible, Cat!" Alayne whined – "I love him!" it felt so good to announce it. He smiled at her adoringly –

"You don't mind –" he gestured – "This?"

It was obvious to Alayne that she had already nobly gone above that and seen the beauty within or she would not be engaged to him; that was how stories worked.

"Of course not!" she kissed his burned face and he beamed happily. Cat made gagging noises.

"Now –" Ned looked out the front door, ignoring them all – "This is the King's Road – We're from Winterfell – clearly my dear – um – wife's family have come to visit and now – we're all headed to King's Landing for my daughter's wedding to this worthy knight."

"Pull that out of your arse did you?" Pod arched an eyebrow.

"It sounds right," Alayne agreed. Nobody else did. Suddenly a terrible howl echoed outside.

"Wolves!" Jaime's eyes went wide, he went and stood as close to Joan as he could without standing behind her.

"I think –" Cat said slowly – "I like wolves."

Alayne was not as afraid as she felt she should be, but she pressed closer into Gregor for the excuse it gave her. He kissed her head and stroked her hair –

"It's alright Little Bird, you're safe with me" He smiled down at her confidently, reassuring. Ned smiled to see them and nodded to himself; yes, this man was right for his daughter, brave and gentle and strong and his love for her was not doubtable or hers for him.

"Close that damn door!" Joan snapped. Ned was slow on the uptake, smiling at the lovers as he was. She marched across the room muttering that she would do it herself, Jaime scuttling after. She whirled around with the door firmly slammed behind her and as she did so something fell out of her pocket. Alayne just had time to see Jaime step on it before a feeling hit her like a blow to the head and she blinked rapidly and repeatedly several times. Looking around she saw everyone do it and as it all came flooding back she leapt from Sandor's side, cheeks bright red and muttering a hasty goodnight that everyone emulated as they scurried to their rooms.

Only Cersei lingered in the Inn's main room long enough to brush the black crystal fragments into the fire and regret that her plan to make them all forget the unfortunate incident with Sansa's wolf had backfired so horribly.

_x_

**Okay, for anyone getting picky, yeah I know Joffrey gave Sansa that necklace later in King's Landing but just for this I wanted her to already have it so as to have a (wrong) idea of who she was!**

**For anyone who got confused and needs to read back: Ned = Ned, Sansa = Alayne, Arya = Cat, Cersei = Joan, Jaime = Pod, Sandor = Gregor and Joffrey, just to really complicate your lives = Jaime. **

**This suggestion was one of the BEST ever and I am so open to more quality one shot ideas like this! In fact, just name me Buffy episodes, I could totally get under that!**


	28. Chapter 28

**Okay, I have to thank a lot of people for their input with this one. based on the success of the last chapter I decided to do another Buffy episode. It was put to me to do "Halloween" – the one where they all turn into their costumes. So I have done. I want to thank everyone who chimed in with this – especially ****_Sassyeggs _****and ****_Direwaggle42. _****I warn everyone though – if anything this is even sillier than the last chapter!**

In the early spring, as her hold on the north secured, Sansa decided to throw the first major masquerade ball the north had seen in centuries. She could never have foreseen the amount of arguing her idea would cause. Not in the preparations, the decorating or the food – Hot Pie threw himself to the task of the banquet with delighted abandon – it was the costumes that got everyone in distress. All over the castle it was as though war had broken out all over again.

"But I _want _to be a knight!" Arya wailed.

"You _are _a knight anyway!" Sansa admonished – "At least you're training to be! Why not go as something – completely different from who you are? That would be more fun".

Arya glared at her suspiciously;

"You're just trying to make me be pretty!"

"Well I couldn't do that if I tried!"

"Fine! Fine you know what – I'll go as _you!" _And so on.

In the library Sam was trying to shoot down all of Gilly's laughing suggestions that he should be a White Walker. He could not think why she would do this to him.

"Well then – I will if you will!"

"I already have my costume planned," Gilly countered with an easy shrug – "You'll see."

The little ones were going to be dragons; Sansa had spent weeks going far and wide for the materials to make their costumes, Bran overseeing the proceedings with tolerant amusement.

Sansa had not thought, right up until the night of the ball, that she would get Sandor in a costume at all. Eventually, grudgingly, just before they were due to go down, he emerged in a suit of shining armour and a flowing cloak of blue silk. Her eyes glowed –

"Oh shut up," he grumbled before she could express approval – "You asked for everyone to be _unlike _themselves remember? Well I'm one of those true knights you're always going on about." She beamed;

"Well pray, escort me to the hall, good Ser!"

"No" Sandor grumbled – "That's too much, _little bird_. Look at you, all feathers and everything."

Sansa had decided even before she put the idea out there to be at least a partial bird and her cloak was a riot of colourful feathers. They almost stumbled over Arya coming into the hall as she ran past yelling –

"This is stupid! Ladies can't fight dragons!" tripping over her skirts whilst Rickon and Shireen ran after her roaring.

"Arya!" Sansa laughed – "_Ladies _look where they're going!"

Arya stuck her tongue out at her sister and ran on. Sansa looked around the room, smiling benignly; Sam and Gilly were late but otherwise – there were Jaime and Brienne – dressed as caricatures of each other, Gendry was a bull and in the corner -

"Good gracious!" Sansa announced – "Whatever is Hot Pie?"

Arya ran up behind her wheezing for breath –

"He's a – hot pie!" she laughed – "Can't you tell?"

Suddenly everything shimmered and went dark.

When Sansa came round again something felt very odd. She stretched, then she flexed her wings – she gasped – she had wings! All over the castle she heard murmurings and she looked around in the dark to see what she could see. The noises from the courtyard were alarming – it sounded like roars and bellows and wings. Jaime and Brienne were screaming at each other – Brienne was missing a hand and Jaime had both of his;

"How in the seven hells would I have stolen your hand woman?" he was yelling.

"You're the woman!"

"Arya?" Sansa caught sight of her sister with relief – at least Arya looked like herself.

"What's happening?" Arya sounded scared, tiny – "What's wrong with everyone? Why do you have wings?"

"I – I don't know. Arya did you hide your sword in your dress – you might need it."

Arya looked shocked;

"Why would I do that? I'm a _proper _lady – ladies don't use swords."

"Arya that's not helpful, stop it now, this is serious."

"I don't understand. Maybe we should just wait here and some brave knight will no doubt come and rescue us."

"Arya stop it! It's starting to scare me!"

"Little bird?" behind her Sandor sat up groaning – "Sansa? You alright? – fucking – " he broke off looking at her – "The fuck is going on?"

"Well at least someone's acting normal!"

"Oh thank goodness!" Arya cried, clasping her bosom – "Are you a knight come to rescue me, good Ser?"

"She keeps doing that!" Sansa looked perplexed.

"I can be," Sandor shrugged – "Let's try and find out what's going on here."

"Wait –" Sansa flapped her wings as she spoke, it was surprisingly relaxing as she floated up towards the ceiling – "I'm getting something – Jaime and Brienne came dressed as each other and now they've swapped hands – Arya you came as a fine lady and –"

"But of course, I did!" Arya looked peeved – "I _am _a fine lady, I am not used to this kind of strangeness!"

"But Sandor you seem much the same – except you didn't shout at Arya for calling you Ser – so somehow –"

"Some magic has made us all our costumes!" Jaime said, coming over – "Look see, there's the most enormous pie in the corner!"

"Hot Pie!" Sansa cried in alarm – "Oh no – oh _no –" _she said again "Sam was going to be –"

As if on cue there came a terrible chill and a frost swept in from the main door. Sandor had already ushered out most of the guests who were still human, and Arya clung to his arm, trembling.

"RUN!" he yelled. They did, Sansa flew right over the head of the terrible White Walker that came crashing into the room. Sandor and Arya swerved around it.

"You can blame Gilly!" Brienne yelled.

"Where _is _Gilly?" Sansa called down.

"Oh what a pretty flower!" Arya bent over to pick a flower out of the stone corridor.

"Not now, Arya!"

"_That's _where she is!" Sandor sighed – "Arya you keep that flower safe!"

They ran out into the courtyard, but it was no safer – two little dragons were flying circles round and round whilst Bran tried desperately to keep them under control and a minotaur was destroying the blacksmith's forge. Arya fainted into Sandor's arms.

"_She's _no use to us!" Brienne complained as they all huddled into an archway.

"You're always so mean!" Jaime grumbled at her.

"Shut it wench!"

"You shut it, kingslayer!"

"Both of you stop!" Sansa snapped sternly – "Arya –" Arya was coming round, head on Sandor's arm. She gazed up at him adoringly –

"You rescued me!" She beamed – "Just like in a story! How can I ever thank you my good lord?"

"You can stop _that _for a start!" Sansa pulled her to her feet – "Arya, I need you to take care of that flower and go back into the main hall with these two and make sure nobody eats Hot Pie!"

"But – but I want to go with the brave good knight!"

"_I _am going with the brave good knight. Now go!"

They went. Sansa fluttered down to the ground –

"I still don't know where to start," she sighed.

"You'll be alright," Sandor patted her awkwardly on the wing – "I'll keep us safe."

Sansa smiled at him, reassured somehow even in the midst of all the chaos;

"Wait –" she frowned, peering as a red cloaked figure came out of a door across the courtyard – "What is _she _doing here?"

They chased the red woman down, Sansa remembering how Arya had described her to them – it could be no-one other than Melisandre of Asshai.

"I wanted to make you all see," she said – "To show you your true selves and bring you to the Lord of Light – I did not know you would all be pretending to be such strange people and creatures."

"Can you undo it?"

"You must look into your hearts and tell me if you want it truly to be undone," she replied importantly. Sansa looked around, flapped her wings gently, saw the dragons and the monsters in the courtyard, heard the white walker running rampant through the castle and nodded, amazed at the question –

"Yes!" She almost snorted – "yes we want it undone!"

The red woman smiled and vanished and it was done. Bran caught the little ones as they fell out of the sky. Gendry looked in shame at the ruin of the forge. Sansa and Sandor ran back into the main hall to check on everyone. Sam was looking ashamed, Jaime and Brienne were still arguing – but at least this time they had the right limbs. Nobody had eaten Hot Pie and Gilly was looking extremely crumpled and distressed from her time in Arya's pocket and Arya –

"Right!" Arya roared, stopping past with Needle in hand, ripping the sweet silk dress off her as she went – "Where's that witch who made me into a swooning soppy –"

"You sure you don't want your brave knight to hunt her down for you, _my lady?" _Sandor could not help himself.

"Shut up!" Arya yelled – "Shut up shut up shut up!"

"Oh, what are you going to do? Swoon on me again? She's never going to live that one down," he grinned at Sansa as Arya stormed off.

"And you?" Sansa smiled sweetly – "Are you going to live it down that you dressed as a true knight and hardly changed at all? I can still give you that knighthood, you know".

"Urgh –" Sandor groaned – "Shut up, little bird."

_x_

**Poor Arya – having to take Buffy's role in this one! I'm loving doing these Buffy things people, so keep em coming! Gonna do ****_Invisible Girl _****next which may be a little more serious. However some lovely soul did suggest ****_Once More with Feeling – _****so any ideas or lyrics would be welcomed for that one – without ripping off Coldplay of course – we could make it a group effort! **


	29. Chapter 29

**This is a shameless snippet from my new long AU fic, a cross between asoi&amp;f and "Whistle down the wind" – set in an alternate timeline where the Starks never left Winterfell.**

**2.**

They cornered the creature in the den they had made in the small trees. There was a spot they had found two winters back, where two fallen trees had twisted together to make the perfect little cave. It had seemed like a wonderland then, but now Sansa had to duck her head to get in the door the tree trunks had formed. The little ones fell in after her, but knowing they had come to the end of the chase they stopped still, staring and silent.

The creature had hunched itself into a corner, hugging the branches that seemed to hug it back. In the gathering gloom Sansa could see the whites of its eyes, and in the silence its ragged breathing was louder by far than any of theirs and it sounded pained. It stared at them, drifting out of focus; then its head rolled back and the eyes closed.

"It's gone to sleep," Bran said.

"Fainted," Arya supplied.

"Dead!" Rickon yelled, almost hopefully.

"Shut up, all of you!" Sansa whispered loudly, not really knowing why she was whispering – "It's not dead and it's not an it –"

As they moved in closer they could make out the shape well enough;

"It's just a man!" Rickon announced. He sounded disappointed.

"A _big _man!" Arya added, almost impressed.

"However did he get here?" Sansa wondered aloud – "Look, he's hurt."

Arya was scrabbling in one of their tins of treasures and got out a candle and match; in its dim light they could see that the man's hands were bloodstained, his garments strange and rough spun, mixed here and there with a mishmash of armour. He wore a hood which had slipped down, so that as the candle was moved further up they could see his face. Arya gasped gleefully and Sansa stifled a cry of horror. Bran said nothing but his eyes grew wide in the dark.

In the shadow and the firelight the man seemed to have only half a face.

Sansa stared and stared, her insides swirling with revulsion and fascination. The firelight painted what was left a scarred, ragged red, and the shadow made the ruin more grotesque. Half of the man's face was burned away, lower down almost to the bone and it glistened wetly with dried blood making it all the more gruesome.

"It _is _a monster!" Rickon positively perked up.

"He's just hurt," Bran said.

"He's like the Stranger," Sansa whispered in awe. "Remember – ever since mother died we've been praying for the gods to come help us out – I never thought they'd send the Stranger."

It did not sound like madness to any of the others; and to Sansa, as soon as the words were out they settled in her heart as an unshakeable truth.

"We prayed so long for an answer," she whispered reverentially – "We mustn't deny it when it comes."

"He's wearing armour – like a knight," Arya pointed out.

"And the hood of the Stranger," Bran pointed out. They all suddenly took a step back as the bulk of the Man moved.

"The fuck …." he groaned out, eyes opening slowly. "Get that fucking fire away from me –"

"Please Ser –" Sansa began, shooing Arya and her candle back, her eyes widening as she thought of the Stranger's aversion to light, how much he was a thing of shadow and darkness. He blinked, looking at her, _just _at her, Sansa thought, as though really seeing her, for a long time. He stared for what seemed like forever, his look becoming fixed, more focused. She started to feel strange herself beneath that stare.

"Not a _Ser," _he rasped, scowling.

"I _told _you he was the Stranger," Bran whispered to Arya behind them, as though this proved it. Arya took a gentle swipe at him.

"How is it that you come to be in our Godswood?" Sansa pressed. The Man looked around him, scowling harder –

"Fucked if I know –" he started to cough, spat on the ground – "You got any wine? Food maybe? It's hard work being this close to death so long."

Sansa's eyes widened –

"Isn't it – isn't it what you do?"

"What? Death? Aye girl, it's the business I'm in and that's for sure – but I didn't do what they said, and you can tell them to piss on that."

In truth Sansa only heard the first part of all he said and, with her suspicions confirmed, she did not feel a need to understand the last part. She reached out impulsively and touched the filthy hand that rested against the ground –

"We're glad you're here," she said – "We've prayed for you –"

"Girl, your mouth is open but all I hear is chirping. Like a bloody little bird aren't you? Get me some fucking wine."

"We don't have wine – but there's water in the pools – Arya, go on!" Sansa waved her away.

"Why me?"

"Take Rickon and Bran too then!"

The little ones went off grumbling. Sansa wondered at her boldness to stay alone with the Strangest Man of all but somehow, despite the frightening otherworldliness of him, she felt curiously safe.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"You're safe now," she nodded – "That's all that matters. We'll look after you – we'll make you well again, truly, you're safe with us."

"Will you –" he looked at her more carefully now. "Will you not tell the adults – there _are _adults, am I right?"

"They've gone out for the day," she said – "But I won't tell, I swear. I'll make the others swear as well. We won't let anyone know you're here – and we'll come back later with food and – things."

The Man stared at her, at the brightness in her eyes and the smile playing round her lips. He felt her soft hands, two of them clasping one of his and had to turn his face away. The noise of the children coming back suddenly seemed terribly loud.

"We brought water!" Bran said.

"We heard horses," Arya added – "Father and the others are back".

"We have to go," Sansa said, all but ignoring all of them, patting The Man's hands as she rose from her knees – "I'll come back after supper with the rest."

The little ones whispering excitedly, she ushered them out of the den, Arya pushing the water bowl into The Man's hands that seemed to grasp for something the moment Sansa pulled away. Arya could only assume it was the water.

The Man watched the children leave, trying to let these new events settle in his head. Now that he was awake and conscious, he felt near dead with thirst. But he watched the bushes move in their wake for a long time before he drank. He thought of the older girl, the pretty one with the sweet voice, the little bird; he thought of how soft her hands had been, how tenderly the had held his and a wetness that was not water cut down his face, a feeling running with it that he had not known in a long time. Nor did he know, at all, what to do with such a feeling.

When the Godswood was still, he drank the water fast. Then when he choked on it he drank slowly until, for the first time since he could remember, he felt almost human again. But more refreshing still was that girl's voice, the sweet softness of her being and the way she had looked at him with those innocent eyes. When he closed his eyes and took a deep breath her image still did not go away, nor long after the last of the night's dark had fallen.

_x_

**I'm curious who knows the plot of Whistle Down The Wind and can guess where this is going! I'm not sure what's worse – knowing or not knowing! Either way, you can find the whole of this story, it's called "Nature of the Beast".**


	30. Chapter 30

**Hogwarts AU! Just a little snippet! The result of too many late night discussions as to what Hogwarts house most of the g.o.t characters would be in. Just for this one I've made pretty much everyone ever the same age:-)**

**30\. **

He remembered the first time he saw her- _really _saw her, that was. He supposed she must have been there all the time, they must have come close every time Hufflepuff shared a lesson with Ravenclaw, but he did not truly register her until the Care of Magical Creatures class in the summer of their fifth year.

They had been studying thestrals. It was relevant because more than half of the class had been too afraid or otherwise unwilling to head out into the forest for the practical aspect of the class. Due to the categorisation of the creatures as highly dangerous, anything other than theoretical study was not forced upon them, and then half of the students would not have been able to see them anyway. In the end there were only some dozen of them who ventured out and he felt, more than usual, that he stood out like a sore thumb among the largely Ravenclaw based group.

As it was, when they saw the creature emerge darkly out of the mists, most of the class fell back in fear, even the Targaryen girl, who was normally the first to run and hug a dangerous creature. It was only_ her_, he noticed, the Stark girl, who went forward, touching it on the nose as though it were a friendly horse and smiling to it as though they were old friends. Hagrid sang her praises of course, and when he called for another volunteer Sandor was the first to offer. He smiled at the girl awkwardly over the Thestral's nose, and for the first time in his life, he experienced a girl smiling back at him.

"My family keep dire wolves," she said with a little shrug.

Then the moment was gone, Daenerys overcoming her fear and demanding to be allowed her turn.

It was still two weeks before he plucked up the courage to talk to her. But he could have sworn he had caught her look his way once or twice in that time. But maybe it was fear, or disgust. It usually was.

In the end she found him. He was down by the lake in the shade reading up for his OWLS. He knew they weren't going to go well, but he figured he stood a chance of a decent grade in Care of Magical Creatures if nothing else. He had shut himself off from the rest of the day and almost jumped when he heard a shy, curious "Hello" above him. He looked up, trying not to squint in the sunlight; god knows his face was bad enough without that. And it was her, the Ravenclaw girl with the beautiful eyes.

"…hi," he managed.

"Can I join you?"

He forced himself not to ask why; why a pretty girl like her could possibly have nobody better to be with. He had seen her going around with those Tyrell girls; they had to be better company for her than he was. In the end he shrugged;

"If you want," It came off more abrasive than he meant it. She didn't seem to hear it. She just sat down. He didn't know where to look and the only thing it occurred to him to talk about were the Thestrals. He almost opened his mouth to say "So who died?" before shutting it again quickly.

"I saw you," she said, eventually into the awkwardness – "In care of magical creatures. The animals like you."

"Yeah," he said, almost exhaling audibly in relief – "Animals like me better than people, I reckon."

"Why?"

"Have you seen me?" She had, he knew she had. He had seen her look and then wonder where and if to look.

"My brother did it," he blurted out, surprising himself even more than her. He had never told anyone this before and had no idea why he was starting now –

"It wasn't an _accident _in potions, or with a dragon like they say. I know what they say. It was Gregor. I'd borrowed something of his, he thought I'd taken it – I hadn't – I was only _playing." _He could not quite help, even ten years later, how defensively it came out. He saw sympathy sparkle in her eyes and told her the rest not looking at her.

"Your brother –" she frowned – "Gregor Clegane in Slytherin?"

"Yeah," he grunted – "Everyone was so proud of him. Then of course he got made Beater on the Quidditch team and was bloody good at it. Probably going professional when he fails his NEWTS."

"You play for the Hufflepuff team," she pointed out gently – "I've seen you. You play much more fairly than anyone in Slytherin."

"It's not hard."

"My sister's seeker for Gryffindor," she added, stretching her legs out in front of her – "All my family went to Gryffindor. I think they must be quite disappointed in me." She sighed and looked at her hands. He looked at her sideways and it took great daring to say –

"I don't see how anyone could be disappointed in you."

She smiled then, and he was suddenly dizzyingly afraid, a drop opening up in front of him that was going to swallow him. He wanted to make her smile like that forever.

"You're – too kind."

He frowned;

"I'm not. _You're _too polite. The littlest singing bird in Ravenclaw tower, aren't you?"

She somehow failed to take this as an insult and faced him with another smile, holding out her hand –

"I'm Sansa Stark." He did not shake it.

"I _know _who you are, Little bird. Everyone knows, the Starks are one of the oldest wizarding families in the country – with the Lannisters."

"My brother Robb takes classes with Jaime and Cersei Lannister," she supplied. He nodded. He remembered the day Cersei Lannister had been sorted into Gryffindor. Nobody had ever seen a first year student so furious. She had thrown the Sorting Hat half way across the hall screaming at it to take it back. For a moment there they had all thought she would set the hat on fire but her brother Jaime had taken it off her and only when he too had been sorted into Gryffindor did she begin to calm down. Lannisters had been going into Slytherin for as long as anyone could remember; everyone could only imagine the mortification Tywin had felt when his oldest children defied this convention, leaving only Tyrion to carry on the Slytherin torch a year later. Sandor reminded her of this now. She laughed. He was not sure he had ever heard anything so pretty.

"But –" she went serious – "I sort of know how she felt. I felt like I'd betrayed my family when the hat said Ravenclaw. We've not had a Ravenclaw since my aunt Lysa."

He shrugged again –

"Guess there's advantages to muggle parents after all."

She smiled. A bell rang up the hill. Sandor swore, following it up with a gruff sound that was almost an apology and standing up quickly.

"Class?"

"Defence against the dark arts," the groan was clear in his voice – "With Professor Baelish".

"Ugh -" She even wrinkled her nose prettily "Baelish is the _worst. _Doesn't he sound like he's trying to speak in Parseltongue?"

Their hissed impressions of the professor took them most of the way back up to the school. For one brief moment before they said their awkward goodbyes Sandor almost but not quite took hold of her hand.

_x_

**Uff, I feel like I've been gone a hundred years – family holiday keeping me from my writing I'm so sorry! Still I'm back now, just wrote this for a warm up before I get back the more serious AUs! **

**If anyone cares I'm a total Hufflepuff. Baelish is ****_such _****a Slytherin and I could probably tell you where I think everyone in the books or series would go! I'm also open and available for lovely arguments with anyone who has different ideas on the matter! (as long as it's not Sandor, he's the Huffly-est puff that ever Hufflepuffed! Just look at his house colors!)**


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